Metro Achievement Center, US

Tags: Friendship, Study, Children, Justice, Youth, Poverty

Metro Achievement Center is a youth education center run by Midtown Educational Foundation. Pupils there are from majority Hispanic and Afro-American backgrounds, coming from the most deprived parts of Chicago.

Since 1994, Metro has been housed in a 1,500m ² building with classrooms, two IT rooms, art and music studios and seminar rooms, and a chapel. The ideas that inspire and are present in all the activities are based on the doctrine of the Catholic Church and on the teachings of Saint Josemaría Escrivá: “Everyone who has sufficient ability should have access to higher education, no matter what their social background, economic means, race, or religion. As long as there remain barriers in these areas, democratic education will be little more than an empty phrase.”

On a warm Saturday morning on the near west side of downtown Chicago, a small group of seventh and eighth-graders are taking a class in a brightly decorated room on the first floor of a five-story building. Upstairs, another group of girls are peering intently at a computer screen: they are looking through the Internet for information for an after-school science project at Chicago’s famed Shedd Aquarium. Yet a third group, high school students, are sitting in a small corner classroom nearby, listening to a volunteer from a Chicago-area corporation talk to them about setting goals for themselves: in school, eventually in the workplace, but also today, in their homes and family life.

To be accepted into the program, these children must live in the city of Chicago, be academically average, come from an economically disadvantaged family, and have at least one parent or guardian who agrees to attend sessions for parents.

Integrated personal development
No doubt the building is attractive, but what truly matters at Metro is the philosophy of education that is behind everything they do there. Esperanza Padilla is seventeen years old and started going to Metro when she was ten. Despite living in a troublesome neighborhood, she says “The day I walked in the door, my attitude started to change. I needed to have somebody keeping after me or I would never have learned things like persistence. Metro did that for me.”

“We help inner city girls succeed academically, but at Metro we go beyond academics,” comments Sharon Hefferan, Executive Director of Metro Achievement Center. “Our character education program, with its focus on instilling virtue, gives depth to the personal development of each girl. Inner city kids often fail in college and beyond, not simply because of poor grades, but also because they lack the personal discipline and virtues needed to excel. At Metro, we help the girls succeed by motivating them to excel as people.”

That help is delivered in character development classes, which are a hallmark of Metro programs overall. Complementing the students’ theoretical understanding of responsibility and good character is the interaction each of them enjoys with a personal “coach,” one of some 200 Metro adult volunteers. This group includes young professionals, many of them recruited from major corporations around the Chicago area, as well as students from local colleges. These volunteers work not only as tutors, but more importantly as advisors and mentors.

The Framework

Metro also has a program for the parents of these students, which offers talks on topics such as “Teaching Teens Virtues.” Sharon Hefferan explains: “At every parents’ session, we try to communicate a fundamental idea: the parents have a primary role in the education of their children. We and other organizations can assist them, but we cannot take over their role. What we can do is help them do a better job at carrying out their mission.”

The girls at Metro have fun, just like any other young person. The Fine Arts Program, a mixture of dance, music, theater, plastic arts and other activities, gives them an opportunity to express themselves through ways they had never experienced before. During one of these programs, the girls’ paintings were on exhibition in one of the galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Patti Patino - a college junior and a scholarship student at DePaul University of Chicago - just finished a technology internship at the accounting firm Deloitte & Touche. As is the case with most students who pass through Metro, Patti continues to stay in touch with the Center and its programs, giving her time and what she has received there to younger girls. “I started at Metro in seventh grade, and my only thought was how to get through high school at the most. My parents didn’t go to college, we didn’t have the money for college, and frankly I was a little afraid of the idea. I wound up on a high school scholarship at the Willow Academy because of my experience at Metro.”

Metro supplemented Patti’s high school program with tutoring, including sessions on how to take notes in class. “I thought note-taking meant transcribing, taking down every word the teacher said. But my Metro tutors explained what it really meant and that was a huge help. Metro was always a place I went to for help – to learn what college would be like, to actually visit different colleges, and to just have my tutors telling me, ‘You can do it’.”

For further information see: www.midtown-metro.org

Metro Achievement Center, US

List of Contents