August 1, 2024
By Caroline Pecore
When thirty rising juniors and seniors from ten New Haven Public Schools lived and studied together in Yale’s Citizens Thinkers Writers program this summer, they found themselves deep in conversation about some of the most challenging issues in civic life.
For two intensive weeks, the students studied classical and modern works of political philosophy, poetry, and literature by authors such as Plato, Locke, James Baldwin, Henry David Thoreau, and Audre Lorde. They discovered that fundamental disagreements about happiness, justice, education, and human nature often lie just beneath the surface of familiar political issues in modern New Haven. Students attended morning seminars in Yale’s Humanities Quadrangle, with conversations spilling over into dining hall meals and evening hangouts in dorms and common spaces in Benjamin Franklin College.
“It was interesting to hear all of these different and mostly very old points of view and see how we can still interpret them in our current time,” said Adina Salahuddin, a junior at ESUMS High School.
“In a lot of our discussions, I learned that everyone can have a different opinion and we don’t have to have a heated argument about it—we can have constructive conversations about something even if we don’t agree,” Salahuddin continued.
“A lot of times, I would immediately think of an answer to something in my head, but then I would hear other people dissect the issue, and it would actually be more complex than that,” added Nyota-Uhura Jackson, a junior at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School. “I learned that there is often not really a quick simple answer—you’ve really got to think, and sometimes the only answer is another question.”
From theory to practice
In the afternoons, the philosophical ideas from the morning discussions became tangible as students posed their questions and ideas to New Haven community leaders. The students began the summer intensive session with a private meeting at City Hall with New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker. Elicker, who had met with a group of CTW students back when he ran the New Haven Land Trust, offered a mix of realism and optimism about what is possible in politics. He impressed this year’s group by taking their questions seriously and offering frank replies. Later in the session, the students enjoyed similar access to Yale Police Chief Anthony Campbell, who reflected honestly on challenges he faced during his time as a New Haven police officer and as the city’s Chief of Police.
On a different afternoon, the guest was Hossna Samadi, a refugee from Afghanistan who spoke passionately about the importance of education for girls. Samadi now serves as Outreach Coordinator for IRIS (Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services). Other afternoon guests included Cynthia Farrar, a classicist who explained how her knowledge of ancient Athenian democracy helped her to work on democracy revitalization in New Haven; Judge Steven Jacobs, who offered insight into his role as a Superior Court judge; and Dr. Orlando Yarborough III, a member of the New Haven Board of Education.
After each event, the students would gather in groups to discuss and digest what the guests had said, linking back to the issues that had arisen in their morning seminars on the books. Luca Rivera, a senior at Hillhouse High School, said, “In our conversation with the Board of Education representative, we could see how all these ideas about education that we were talking about in class are actually super relevant. We were able to ask him a lot of questions about some of the things that are going on in our schools, such as sudden management changes, understaffing, and underfunding. I feel like, in a good way, the conversation brought out a lot of tension and conflict.”
Caleb Rubio, a senior at Hill Regional Career Magnet, said, “I thought our conversation with the mayor was interesting. We talked about economic inequality between cities in Connecticut, as well as homelessness and housing insecurity. I see these issues in the city myself—people getting forced to move out of their homes real quick, often minorities, and then the rent is too expensive for them to move back in.”
In the evenings, students met in small groups and one-on-one with the Yale undergraduates who serve as Residential Teaching Assistants (RTAs). “Having our RTAs in the room with us in morning seminars and then later being able to split off with them and really reflect on what we had talked about during the day made conversations much more intentional,” Rivera said. “It gave us the space to reconcile with ourselves what we actually felt and thought in a very active way.”
A taste of college life
The program’s residential structure gave students a glimpse of college life. “It definitely made me rethink my ideas about the college experience,” said Chakou Ouroman, a senior at High School in the Community. “It was just all around independence. I realized it’s all on me. It’s not like I’m just being forced into things; I gotta figure out my own time.”
“Before this program, I was unsure if I wanted to go to college, but I think my experience changed my mind and now I do want to go to college,” said Rubio. “I had never thought about my education so deeply before. The philosophy part of the program really influenced me to think more about the purposes of learning and of being educated, and to question and have a healthy amount of doubt about my own certainties.”
When students visited the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, they saw original manuscripts of many of the texts they read, as well as several historical artifacts, including the pen Abraham Lincoln used to sign the Emancipation Proclamation and wood sections and nails from Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond.
“Seeing that Emancipation Proclamation pen was so dope because that was like, one of the biggest documents in history,” said Ouroman. “I can’t believe we got to touch that pen that Big Abraham Lincoln himself used.”
Students also had time to relax and bond. Ouroman remembers “just hanging out, shooting some hoops, and laughing during group check-ins with the guys at the end of the night.” Jackson enjoyed getting ice cream, watching movies, and spending time with friends.
Salahuddin added, “It’s fun to get to know everyone and have people to talk to outside of the scheduled discussions—not only about the readings but also about any random topic you want to bring up.”
“I don’t feel that there are a lot of programs in New Haven right now where students are really given the opportunity to just say what they think—and we already live in a society where the voices of children and teenagers are very much scrutinized and oppressed,” Rivera said. “The program gave us the space to think, and it also gave us the space to feel and to put ourselves into the place of others and to be able to really see a world that is bigger than ourselves.”