How Extracurricular Activities Equip Students with Activism Skills
While the K-12 case studies demonstrate the ways that students’ classes equip them with knowledge and skills for activism, another element of the school environment that prepares students for activism is their extracurricular activities. I will explore the relationship between extracurricular involvement and activist identity formation by discussing the findings from my interview with youth activist, Ayoko Kessouagni.
Interviewee Profile: Ayoko Kessouagni
Hometown: Newark, NJ
University and Class Year: Sophomore at Rutgers University
Major(s) and Minor(s): Marketing Major, Social Justice Minor
Job/Affiliation: Associate at 1Huddle
“I am hoping in the future to be a fashion marketer so that I can help companies better understand the communities they’re trying to market to, especially when it comes to cultural appropriation.”
In my interview with Ayoko, I learned about her activist origins and the influences that her extracurricular involvement has had on her growth as an activist. She detailed several of her experiences from middle school through the present and explained how each one helped shape her activist journey:
Middle School
Debate Team
Ayoko shared that the foundation for her youth activist journey was during her time as a member of her middle school’s debate team. While she noted that the defining moment for her activism was her participation in The GEM Project as a high school junior, she realized during our conversation that she began acquiring the skills for activism as a debater. She explained:
“I used to be a debater in middle school, and that really helped in terms of being able to articulate my words as well as write a paper [and write emails].”
As a student/youth activist, an essential strength of Ayoko’s is the ability to use her voice. Her development of this skill is due, in part, to her debate experience.
High School
Exchange Program Trip to Japan
During her junior year of high school, Ayoko participated in an exchange trip to Japan. This experience helped equip her for youth activism by exposing her to an array of identities different than her own. She explains:
“I had the opportunity and the privilege of meeting different people and seeing their personalities and perspectives and basically trying to understand that within my own understanding of who I am and who people are individually.”
Ayoko shared that, while in Japan, she had the opportunity to meet and speak with both modern and traditional Japanese families. A critical topic of discussion was the comparison of the school systems of Japan and the United States. Her exchange experience equipped her with a global perspective.
Future Educators Association
In addition to her exchange experience, an experience that allowed Ayoko to meet and speak with people from different regions was her time with the Future Educators Association. When describing the group’s purpose, Ayoko explained:
“We went to different universities around New Jersey or states close by and we met other people from different states and other people from different counties, and we learned all together about what it means to be an educator in different sectors… It was interesting because it was a way for me to see how my teachers were seeing us.”
The Future Educators Association was an avenue for people who were interested in education to learn about what it means to be an educator. By traveling within New Jersey and across neighboring states, Ayoko demonstrated her ability to handle herself in different environments and relate to people who come from different areas, such as suburban areas or rural areas. In addition to the ability to consider a global perspective, Ayoko gained through this experience the ability to understand and navigate the dynamism of an environment closer to home.
GEM Project
Out of all of the extracurriculars in which Ayoko has participated, the one that seemed to have the greatest impact on her activist journey was The GEM Project. When I asked Ayoko what steered her toward the direction of youth activism, she responded:
“I met this program called The GEM Project… I was interested in doing things around Newark, New Jersey, which is where I am from. Through that, I became who I am now, which is a student activist. And through that program, I basically just learned about artivism, which is basically like using my love for art to put that toward activism as well as being able to just communicate with people who have higher positions within the Newark government and the school education system.”
While the previously discussed extracurricular involvements detailed Ayoko’s skill-building, her time spent working through The GEM Project provides a clearer and more tangible application of those skills. An example of Ayoko’s activism is shown in the embedded webpage below. In the gallery featured on the page, you will see work from an art project in which she participated, titled “Reincarnation of Jim Crow”. Ayoko’s art demonstrated the experience of being a black person in the prison system of the United States in contrast to that of a white person, calling attention to the ways the country’s laws and government allow ideas from the Jim Crow era to persist. This project represents her ability to identify a social issue, consider the perspectives of those who experience the issue firsthand, and articulate in a creative way the reasons why the issue is important.
College
Honors Living-Learning Community & LGBTQ Discussion Group
Ayoko explained that her current extracurricular involvement is in her university’s Honors Living-Learning Community. Within this involvement, she highlighted her role as an LGBTQ discussion group leader. The critical skill that she has acquired and continues to develop through this involvement is conversation. She notes:
“We mainly focus on social justice issues, intersectionality, and all the things that have to do with justice and activism... Last semester I was the leader of the LGBTQ discussion group, [and there I learned about] communicating with other people who have either similar mindsets or different mindsets so we can communicate about things that are going on in our world.”
As with her previously described extracurricular involvements, Ayoko’s involvement in this learning community equips her for activism by exposing her to a collection of different perspectives. By facilitating group discussions, Ayoko functions as an activist within this group by developing a safe space for her peers to speak about their experiences. Activism, in this sense, entails highlighting and honoring marginalized identities. Ayoko explained to me that, as a result of her discussion-leading experience, she is interested in conducting further research about LGBTQ issues and continuing social justice work.