Alyx Kellington
Orlando is sixteen and gets bored easily. He receives mediocre to low grades, lives in the lower socioeconomic range, is being raised by a single mother and has a tendency to get in trouble.
How many of you work with students like Orlando?
Although Orlando does not care much for school, he enjoys going to an afterschool program where he hangs with his friends and gets to be creative. Twice a week, a visual art teaching artist comes in and the students study the history of their south Florida town, including the architecture, the cultural activities, the cars and clothing, and compare it to today.
On 12×12 plywood, the students create background, glue down fabric and copies of photographs, paint details, and add text, creating a collage of their community, past and present. Orlando worked on three of the boards, learning technique, an art vocabulary, and an appreciation for history that was relevant to his world.
Because of Orlando’s participation in this project, when I was looking to hire a temporary employee to help deliver educational materials over the summer, the director of the afterschool program recommended him.
“Hi Orlando. Have you had a job before?” I asked.
He mumbled and looked down at his feet. “No ma’am. This will be my first.”
“You may not get the job if I can’t see or hear you. Do you want this job?”
Orlando straightened up and looked me in eye. “Yes ma’am. I definitely want this job.” And he flashed me a big smile.
For the next few weeks, Orlando and I drove over 100 miles a day in our rented Ford Transit van and delivered thousands of copies of An Educational Guide to Art and Culture in Palm Beach County. We visited public schools, private schools, cultural organizations, afterschool programs, and the school district warehouse, sharing the value of arts education. And we talked a lot. About life, future, art, responsibilities, and dreams.
The work experience, from understanding the importance of a social security number and filling out that first W-9 form to helping navigate the exits and drop offs and directions of the county, helped Orlando take those beginning steps of becoming a responsible adult.
As a student, he got an overall glimpse of the education system and how many components are involved, he met teachers and principals during summer hours and saw how much work they do, and he gained respect for the importance of education, seeing it as an opportunity, not just as something he “has to do.”
He also witnessed the struggle with incorporating the arts into the school system and vowed to advocate for more arts.
“I don’t want to be an artist, Miss. I just want to have that chance to be creative. To have that knowledge. I understand more about things now. How it all comes together. This job wasn’t just about earning minimum wage; I really learned stuff! And to think, it all came about because of that art project in my afterschool program. I see a future.”
Did you see a future in your first job?
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