Stories From the Field: West Brooklyn

The LTW Seminar: Setting Students Up for Success 

For students, success during an internship often comes down to preparation: Are they equipped with the skills needed to present themselves as professionals? Can they communicate with adult strangers as equals? Are they both giving and demanding respect on the job? Throughout our research, we heard students talk about the Learning to Work (LTW) Seminars as a crucial structure that primed them for success. To learn more about how these seminars operated at their best, we visited West Brooklyn Community High School (WBCHS) where Trequan Bekka, the Job and Work-Based Learning Coordinator, organizes a particularly extensive version. 

The goal of all LTW Seminars is to provide students with the necessary skills to prepare them for a successful placement. Or, as one WBCHS student shared, “In seminars, you talk about how to make resumes, how to talk to people. They just prepare us.” Typically, a seminar takes place once a week and lasts approximately an hour long. But at WBCHS, Bekka settled on a longer, more comprehensive monthly version that he makes mandatory for both current interns in the program, as well as non-interns who are interested in participating. 

A Communal Affair  

Attending a WBCHS LTW Seminar feels like you are participating in a community gathering. We showed up to over fifty students, talking, eating, and learning together in the school’s gymnasium. Hosted by WBCHS staff, students, and their CBO partner, Good Shepherd Services, the goal is a tightly run program with plenty of room for students and staff to bond. Weeks prior, students received an email with the agenda, a flyer with a QR code to scan to find appropriate business casual examples, which was the dress code, as well as instructions on how to join if you are a non-intern. Knowing that students have already attended a long day at school, Tre recruits in his typically warm fashion, “We will have food for you, something good. We got y'all.” 

Putting Working Students to Work  

At WBCHS, students aren’t just LTW Seminar attendees, but active organizers working alongside adult staff. One student intern currently placed at Maimonides Hospital volunteered to be the event’s photographer working the entirety of the seminar capturing candid pictures of students, panelists, and staff. Other students, doing their internship as DJs, were responsible for playing the music during the lunch portion. In a conversation with one, she remarked on the opportunity, “Yeah, it’s cool. I’m coming out of my box… Doing it in front of people makes you build up a type of confidence.” Likewise, student interns involved in the culinary program baked cupcakes for the event. Abigail Jordan-Nicome and Vanessa Castellane who run the culinary program explained this was a natural extension of their internship. As interns, students are not only taught how to select recipes, but how to budget for the supplies needed, and determine prices while also factoring in the cost of production. At the seminar, they get to share these new skills while giving back to their community.  Or as one former baker-intern explained, “Culinary was really good. I learned a lot, [especially] how to get organized.” 

Positive Communication 

After lunch, a more interactive portion of the seminar began. Facilitated by Jamel McAllister, an advocate counselor, the focus was on “Positive Communication.” Students sat in a large circle and began with an icebreaker sharing an adjective that describes themselves based on the first letter of their name – shy, kind, amazing bounced around the group. The next activity required students to think about three components of positive communication: body language, tone, and words. Students were asked to write down the percentage of importance for each of these components on chart paper spread throughout the gymnasium. McAllister asked for volunteers to explain the rationale for their different selections leaving them free to speak without any interruptions. Students detailed their own experiences, particularly how closed-off body language can affect how people receive what they are trying to communicate. To close, McAllister went over research that indicated body language was the most important component of positive communication. He noted that even if students disagreed, he was sharing what others believed to be true. Observing McAllister, we saw expert facilitation: an engaging activity that solicited the participation of all students, opportunities for students to practice their communication, and time for reflection without fear of getting an answer wrong. It was a beautiful example of the entire community of staff, students, interns, and non-interns, learning about, from, and with each other all while practicing exactly the type of skills they would be using in their placements.  

The second half of the interactive portion was set up like a debate. Now, students were required to state whether they agreed, were neutral, or disagreed with potentially controversial prompts. The first prompt was about whether students should be allowed to wear AirPods while in the classroom with the vast majority agreeing with the statement. Students who agreed explained that they were still able to concentrate in class even while wearing AirPods as well as the benefits of listening to something to help them get their work done. Those who disagreed felt that the display was disrespectful to teachers. Principal Malik Lewis joined the debate asking students a series of questions about whether they would wear AirPods at a wedding, or a funeral. Drawing on examples that resonated with students and rooting the argument in an asset-based belief that students show respect in different contexts seemed to land well with students who nodded their heads in agreement. It was another powerful example of how the seminar could simultaneously challenge students to interrogate their understanding of communication while preparing them to communicate positively within their internships, injecting humor and lived experience to ground it home.