#<- aced a history final exam freshman year without studying (history is not my strong suit lol)

[itz-pandora]

It's finals week‼️

Most people should be stressing out but honestly I'm just relieved that I'll have time to draw on Thursday and Friday lol

[amarantine-amirite]

Three Worlds, One Problem

Have you ever come across two or more things that seem completely unrelated, but aren't; and it all comes together once you have one more thing that relates them all? The best example I can think of that shows you what I'm getting at is if you have three puzzles pieces that are three different colors: blue, white, and green. They seem like pieces from entirely different puzzles, but they're part of the same puzzle. You don't see it until you have that fourth piece that links the three colors together.

In my lifetime, I've come across three things that seem totally unrelated, but actually are. The first thing is something that happened to me when I was 15 years old. At the time, I attended a school for gifted children that, for some reason, had an unusually high number of students pursue careers in the government, and the school would select a student in sophomore year at random to apply early to Duke as a government major (they weren't kidding; they sent you a pre-filled application and everything). The girl who they picked originally (Jane, her name was? Or maybe Judy?) died, and I agreed to take her place. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but I was just woefully bad at doing real, actual work. When I was at school, whatever I handed in would be extremely sloppy (if not incomplete) and it didn't matter one bit. They just checked it off as complete anyway.

Once I got to Duke, that wasn't the case anymore. They went over what you wrote with a fine-tooth comb. My first paper for history was about the Civil War, and what I turned in read like the plot of a stupid movie where The Beatles fought against radioactive Viet Cong sharks (no, really, I used the phrase "radioactive Viet Cong sharks" at least eighty times, if not more). I repeatedly never studied for tests, nor did I ever complete a paper before about 12 hours before it was due. I was always doing other things-be it watching YouTube, playing tennis with my roommate Ashlie (while I should've been studying for my history midterm) or writing dumb folk songs about people who wanted to ban bananas because they looked like penises (when I was supposed to be writing my history midterm) or anything else. Not only did I not get any work done, I forgot I even had work to do; to the point where I wound up on academic probation. In fact, I was teetering on getting suspended for my bad grades. I'd never been suspended before, but I'd been warned about it in the past. Never in any of my past experiences had I been warned of suspension as a consequence for half-assing it on my schoolwork, but I (at the time) didn't know that suspension was a legitimate consequence for bad grades in college. And I was very afraid.

Fortunately, I stayed. About 3/4 of the way through my first term, I pulled myself together and started doing my work for real. Gone were the badly written papers that my TA's mistook for B-movie proposals and my habit of missing midterms. Instead, I wrote eloquently, and I aced all my exams. I had legitimately changed. I had, inexplicably, changed. Why? The reasons everyone brings up ("Cassie fails to do work in class because she is defiant", "Cassie is bored in school", etc.) didn't hold water, nor did any of my explanations ("I was way out of my comfort zone", "I was woefully unprepared for university") make any sense. Whatever caused me to change my work habits for the better, it wasn't the warning of a suspension.

The second thing is the Sia song "Breathe Me". "Breathe Me" was written in 2004, and since then, it was used everywhere (I'm not joking, either. I remember being bombarded by it from movies, TV, and ads when I was in middle school). Not only was "Breathe Me" overused for a little bit, it was overused for a long time.

I'm not sure if I'm the only one who thinks this, but I seem to remember that (and this was especially true during my first year at Duke) it always reminded me of "Revolution 9" by The Beatles. The association was so strong, it couldn't have been constructed from my own memories. It could have only come from having heard one particular rendition of "Breathe Me" that was really weird. When I say weird, I freaking mean it. The piano part was played on a sitar, and there was this weird whispering thing that kept saying "right" throughout the second stanza, and there was that outro. Oh, my God, that outro. That outro was so bizarre.

Honestly, maybe I didn't actually hear it in real life. Now that I mention it, I probably dreamt it. It seems too weird to be real. Sia's lawyers would have gone absolutely nuts had somebody made a version of "Breathe Me" that was that strange. The more I think about it, the more I suspect that I might have dreamt it, because I began to associate that weird version of "Breathe Me" very strongly with wind turbines, electrical lines, and other energy related outdoor structures. To me, that just screams dream.

The thing and final unrelated thing concerns a conference I had attended about the same week I turned 16. Since I wasn't invited to the conference, I tried to lay low as much as possible. Usually, this meant that I just hung around and talked with all these financial people. I pretended to know what they were talking about, but I kept changing the subject when I got the chance. If someone said that the bank of wherever was on thin ice, I'd change the subject to how ice crystals formed. Either that, or I'd hang around eating all the cucumber slices that they have.

That said, there was one place where I screwed up. I screwed up so much, it was glaringly obvious that I was neither invited to the conference nor as calm and collected as I appeared. About halfway through some old German guy's speech about the (dim) future of the Eurozone, I just completely lost it. I actually had a panic attack that was so extreme, the speaker told me to shut up. I remember the guy's exact words: "If you panic at the thought of the collapse of the Eurozone, just kill yourself. Your life won't get any easier from here on in. In fact, you shouldn't even be here. Fuck off, will you?" That, and that, was the thing that sent me from panic to flat-out rage. I walked right up to the guy and told him to reach up his ass and pull his head out. A chase (and a flip-out) soon ensued. My God, that was some flip-out. I pushed a photocopier out a window and onto a fire hydrant.

After things cooled down, it was all over. They found out I snuck into the conference, and they kicked me out. In a fit of defeat, I went to bed. I didn't fall asleep easily that night. In fact, I was so upset that I spent most of the night thinking of dropping out of Duke and just plain going home. I was so scarred by what I did, I probably won't be able to go to a financial conference again.

Now, all three of the things that I told you (my sudden improvement in my work habits, my association of Sia's "Breathe Me" with The Beatles's "Revolution 9", and my flip-out at the conference) are completely unrelated. They're just three things that happened around the same time that have no connection to each other, right?

Wrong. There is a connection. That connection is, of all things, an episode of the girl's cartoon Winx Club.

Typically, this wouldn't make any sense. How would a cartoon connect three seemingly unrelated events in my life? Well, between the death of my high school classmate Jo (finally, I remembered her name) and the end of my freshman year at Duke, I would watch Winx like there was no tomorrow. I loved (and I do mean loved-the past tense is for a reason) Winx Club, and my obsession with the show peaked around the same time at the conference. It was right when the German guy began speaking at our conference that I stumbled across a "lost" episode of Winx Club on YouTube. Without so much as a second thought (or for that matter, a first thought), I clicked on it and watched. The title of the episode was "The Kraken", and at the time; I figured that maybe the Winx would have to rescue somebody from a giant space octopus. Well, there was a giant octopus, but nobody was rescued. If anything, everybody was more or less doomed.

This sounds like a cliche, but it's not. I remember clicking on the video and it taking almost an hour to load. I also remember my laptop crashing. After turning it off and back on again, I went back to the video. This time, it played no problem. I was so excited that I got to see the episode. Looking back, there wasn't much of a tip off that things weren't normal. The opening sequence was normal, the video didn't get stuck a second time, none of it. Absolutely nothing was amiss. Unfortunately, the normalcy ended with the title card.

The episode started sort of normal, but there was this purple tint to everything that persisted throughout the entire episode. The very first scene showed the window to Bloom and Stella's room. You couldn't really see them that well, but you could see their silhouettes. They were talking about how they couldn't figure out what was bothering Flora so much. Bloom's guess was that it had something to do with Helia (Flora's boyfriend) actually being female this whole time, while Stella's guess is that it had something to do with how she put on a few pounds. Either way, they couldn't agree on something. They couldn't even agree to disagree. Yet, their disagreement wasn't what stuck me as odd. What struck me as odd was that there weren't any scenes where you saw their faces. Either you got a silhouette or a closeup of their lower legs. I was a bit weirded out, but I continued to watch the video.

What happened next was where things started to really head downhill. While Stella and Bloom were arguing, Tecna was busy taking apart the printer at the end of the hall. Musa kept saying, "Tecna, you're not allowed to take the printer apart", "Tecna, for the love of God, stop messing around with the printer", and "Knock it off, or I'm ratting you out". Tecna completely ignored this, and continued messing with the printer until she got it to pick up the Yankee game. Meanwhile, Bloom and Stella continued arguing until Bloom asked, "Why's Tecna watching the Yankee game on the printer?" Unsurprisingly, Bloom thought this was hilarious. Again, nobody's face was shown. All you literally saw was the display panel on the printer and, eventually, the Yankee game.

The scene faded to a silhouette of Flora crying. She talked about how she was fearing for her life, that she was actually a test subject for a government experiment. She'd escaped after the power went out during a fire drill, and she mentioned that she cut off the tracker attached to her wrist before the power came back on. She'd been hiding out at Alfea ever since. As I watched this scene, all I could think of was oh, come on, enough with the conspiracy theorist rant, make your point already, but I pricked up my ears when she mentioned something called "the Kraken". As she said the word "Kraken", a strange, staticky image of an octopus splashed across the screen. The whole thing gave off a really, really strange vibe. A really, really, really strange vibe.

The third scene was where things really went down the drain. We didn't see anybody's silhouette this time, but the quality of the video went downhill. The Winx girls were in Faragonda's office, and she wasn't pleased. She was swearing at them, calling them "disgusting bitches who belong in a sewer", and threatening to beat them. Now, this is incredibly dark for a kids cartoon (and it isn't even dark in the normal way Winx is sometimes dark. To be honest, it sounded like it came from some stupid Lifetime movie about a psycho teacher). What was even more unsettling was that the girls were all wearing black masks. Some wore half masks, while others wore full masks. The masks were crudely drawn, like they were those anonymity silhouette things you sometimes see on the news. Apparently, not only did Faragonda find out about what Tecna and company did to the printer, but she got off the phone with the government scientists who worked at the research facility from where Flora escaped. Musa had ratted both Flora and Tecna out. Later, Flora and Tecna were led outside; Flora to a black van, and Tecna to a blue car. This is the part of the episode in which the weird version of Sia's "Breathe Me" begins to play. The minute I heard "Breathe Me" play, I thought oh, jeez, not this shit again. Yet, this was different. Something caught me totally off guard the minute Tecna got in the blue car. An androgynous voice uttered the following words: Take this brother, may it serve you well.

After that, I couldn't not watch it. I had to see where this 100% messed up episode was headed. "Breathe Me" resumed, and the black van pulled up to the research facility. The two drivers of the van dragged Flora out and led her into the facility. The scene eventually cut to Bloom flying towards the facility, only to get caught in electrical lines while Tecna (who's boarding a helicopter at this point) says to the man escorting her, "You hear something?" just before the scene fades out to wind turbines. As the scene fades to wind turbines, the phrase "number 9, number 9, number 9" (and, of course, the random screaming of "Right!") repeated in the background.

What happens next is probably the reason why I will never listen to "Breathe Me" (or, for that matter, anything else by Sia) the same way again. There was a close up of Stella getting struck by the blades on one of the wind turbines. Now, I never liked Stella (she was bit of a doofus), but seeing her get killed by a wind turbine just made me feel ill. Worse, there was a lot of cutting back and forth between the helicopter flying off into the night and Flora in the research facility, getting subjected to some God-awful experiment where she was injected with something that made her turn into a werewolf and lash out against the scientists. This is where the bizarre outro to "Breathe Me" starts playing. One of the scientists was about to kill Flora, but his coworkers had to hold him back. She was uncontrollable, violent, wild even. I really don't want to delve into too much detail here, but in the end, she mauled the scientists to death.

The rest of the episode was just a mishmash of Flora destroying things and the helicopter with Tecna in it catching on fire and crashing into the ocean. The sound was a mishmash, too (Seriously! At one point, a half-human-half-lupine Flora said, "Satan, look at me. Please?"). That is, of course, until the very end. The screen cut to black, and it was completely silent, with the exception of a very low frequency hum. 

At this point, a Matrix -esque sequence of letters and numbers flicker on the screen while a roboticized Tecna looks right at the camera. I will never forget the menacing red glow of her eyes as she said the following: Yes, what happened to Flora was a tragedy, and what became of Magix and Alfea was nothing short of disastrous. But, I know where everyone lives. I know how you fake sympathy, crawl away from the truth, search out cognitive consistency, and kill off our faith in humanity. I know what you do. I can watch your every move, and I can control what happens. Your insignificant little blue planet means nothing to me. I made you do these things, and I can make everything stop. I'm the Kraken, goddammit! Again, the staticky image of the octopus appeared, but it didn't just flash over the screen. It actually played a video of the octopus splitting the Earth in half, then transforming into a black hole. After that, the episode was over.

I was in shock. I thought it was a never before seen episode of Winx, but it turned out to be the most demented thing I'd ever see. What I'd just seen had ruined me. I was so shocked that I melted down. Right there. At that conference. All that work I put into laying low at a financial conference was wasted by the simple act of watching an episode of Winx Club on my laptop that scared the ever loving shit out of me. This is gonna sound stupid, but I think it fundamentally changed me.

Seriously, that one episode of Winx Club is the reason that I kicked my schoolwork into high gear 3/4 of the way into term, the reason that I associate Sia's "Breathe Me" with The Beatles's "Revolution 9" , and why I flipped out at the conference. That was the thing that tied together three otherwise unrelated events.

Oops, my bad. There were actually four unrelated things happening. The fourth thing was Jo's death. Thinking back on the episode, I couldn't help but notice the name on the byline: Siobhan Lansig. Maybe it was someone with the same name, but I kept thinking to myself, isn't that Jo? I also couldn't help but notice the description of the video Let's get a few things straight here. I'm absolutely desperate to get the hell outta here! My teachers treat me like crap, I've been bullied so much you'd think it was a joke, and I got booted out of every club for my "behavioral disorder". Here's the reason why schizophrenics are "evil": YOU ACT LIKE WE ARE. PERIOD!!! I'm taking that early admission to Duke even though my study habits are even worse than those of Cassie Oakley. After that, I'm gonna take over the world. I understand that I don't have much time left, so this is what I'm leaving behind to all them mortals here on Earth. I know I'm gonna die, and I know that I'm gonna come back. Someday, I'll be back. Siobhan "Jo" Lansig (AKA the Kraken)

Not only did Jo dying allow me to get early admission to Duke's government program, she also wrote the messed up Winx episode that shocked me into better studying. The more I think about it, the more I think that Jo did this as a personal message for me. It wasn't so much as "Do well, make me proud" as it was "Get your shit together or you're gonna get it". Jo was never my friend; she was a madwoman. If this was the power she held when she was dead, I don't even want to think about the power she would wield if she were still alive.

[ixvyupdates]

How Quincy Patterson Became Virginia Tech’s First Quarterback to Major in Engineering

If you follow Chicago’s high school football scene, you probably already know Quincy Patterson, the Solorio High School quarterback who drew lots of attention from college recruiters before committing to Virginia Tech last spring. But you probably don’t know he’ll be the first Virginia Tech quarterback in history to major in their highly-regarded engineering department.

This is all possible because Quincy’s high school academic record is just as stellar as his athletics: a 27 on the ACT, a slew of AP courses and a weighted GPA now hovering around a 4.4. And he earned all this despite some elementary school experiences that could have thrown off even the brightest kid.

How did he make it through so successfully? I’d chalk it up to two factors: a fiercely dedicated mother and school options that didn’t exist for two of his older siblings.

To the surprise of his family, Quincy spent his first three years of school at May Elementary in Austin, which was closed in 2013 for poor academic performance. His mom, Kimberly Dalton-Patterson, says the family had to scramble for housing after the building where they had been renting was suddenly sold.

The Sacrifice

They landed in May’s attendance area, despite Mom’s misgivings. “I knew about the neighborhood. I knew the school. I knew the problems,” said Dalton-Patterson. So, she stepped up at once to shield her baby from trouble. “I just made sure I was at the school every day.”

That sacrifice was nothing compared to the work Dalton-Patterson had already put in to support her children. After Quincy, her youngest was born, she decided to stay home and focus on him while keeping tabs on two of his older siblings at Gage Park High School.

Her decision gave Quincy the opportunity to go on public transit adventures across the city with his mom, get his thousands of curious questions answered one-on-one and spend lots of time taking things apart and learning to put them back together—the roots of his interest in engineering.

‘He Doesn’t Belong Here’

At May, Dalton-Patterson helped out in classrooms and on the playground. She remembers a lot of children who came from difficult family situations and a lot of teachers who didn’t know how to manage and support them. “I broke up a lot of fights,” she said. “I remember a lot of teachers struggling.” She was able to connect with the children in ways they couldn’t. “They were grateful, actually.”

Despite the challenges, Quincy’s first-grade teacher managed to make a difference. He sought out the students who were most interested in learning and made time for them. “Mr. Schroeder was great. He was real intuitive,” said Quincy.

Meanwhile, Dalton-Patterson was getting a strong, consistent message from the faculty about her son: “He doesn’t belong here.” Meaning, he’s too smart and well-behaved to be in this environment. He needs a better school.

‘I Really Taught Them Myself’

So Dalton-Patterson found a place to live in a different part of Austin, known as “The Italian Island” and close to amenities like Chicago’s beautiful Columbus Park and the suburb of Oak Park. In Quincy’s younger years, it was six tight-knit blocks of Black and Italian families where all the kids attended just two schools: the local Catholic school and the neighborhood school, George Rogers Clark.

“Clark was almost like a suburban school,” Quincy recalled. “It was very different. Nothing ever happened in school or in the neighborhood” that would threaten a child’s sense of safety. With no discipline issues to distract anyone, Quincy had the chance to fall in love with math and was showered with attention as a result. “I got a lot of awards.”

Dalton-Patterson says her son thrived in the new environment. “He became more open and got into extracurriculars” like school spelling bees and talent shows. But this happy situation only lasted for two years.

The family moved south just in time for Quincy to start fifth grade at Marquette Elementary in Gage Park. “It was terrible,” he recalls. On his second day of school, he witnessed a fight in the courtyard while waiting to enter the building. While fifth grade was bad, the next year was worse. “There were fights every day. No structure,” he said.

Dalton-Patterson was ready to move Quincy out of Marquette and put him in the KIPP charter where his next-older sister went. (She went on to graduate from Whitney Young and attend the University of Chicago.) But when the Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL) agreed to turn Marquette around, Dalton-Patterson decided to see if it would make a difference.

Plus, at bottom, she felt that she and her kids had final responsibility for their academic success. “All my kids, I really taught them myself,” she said. “Whatever they needed, I got it beforehand so they could do their best. Sam’s Club has good books—test preparation, study material.”

Turning Down Whitney Young for Solorio

To Quincy’s surprise, AUSL’s Marquette turnaround brought sweeping changes to the school. “We walked in the first day of seventh grade and there were like 30 security guards,” he said. The principal and teachers were all brand-new. Physical fights subsided, though there were still plenty of verbal arguments.

Quincy’s new teachers saw his talent right away, in the year that matters most for high school admissions. His reading and math teachers began giving him advanced work on top of what he had to do for class, so he would be better prepared not just to score well on the entrance exam for Chicago’s most elite high schools, but prepared to do the work.

This was the same year Quincy discovered football. Unlike many of Chicago’s high school players, he didn’t get his start in football very young, through the park district. He ran track as a youngster, but Marquette was the place he began exploring lots of athletics: football, basketball and baseball.

He met Solorio’s baseball coach while playing a game on their diamond. They hit it off and Quincy began to hear a lot about Solorio’s advantages: no fees for AP exams (unlike at Whitney Young), AP courses available as early as freshman year, athletic opportunities with more room to shine. Quincy had planned to follow his sister to Whitney Young, but Solorio began to capture his interest.

He told his mother he wanted to go there, and she took pains to check it out. “I came up before and after school and saw how the kids were. I watched the neighborhood.” She decided to let him attend a shadow day. Although Quincy aced the high school entrance exam and won a coveted spot at Whitney Young, he and his mom decided Solorio was the right fit.

Solorio Supported the Whole Family

They have not been disappointed. As a freshman, Quincy got his first classroom taste of engineering in an elective and loved it. “My egg didn’t break,” he says of the results of his design project creating something that would keep an egg from breaking when dropped from a second-story window.

Like most high school freshmen, Quincy struggled at first to manage his time and meet new levels of responsibility in sports and studies. But he got key support from his athletic director and AP Human Geography teacher, Jeff Niemiec. When Quincy’s grades slipped under the pressure, Niemiec “forced” him out of JV games and kept him focused on varsity football and studies.

“Freshman year was a little shaky in the beginning, but he got it under control,” Dalton-Patterson said. “I’ve loved it here.” In fact, Dalton-Patterson has loved it so much she now works in Solorio’s front office. This year she also became the first parent to win Solorio’s Mike Koldyke Friend of the Athletic Program award.

While it’s clear Quincy wouldn’t be where he is today without his dedicated mom, his educational trajectory also took a turn for the better thanks to AUSL, from their work turning around Marquette to providing an outstanding neighborhood high school, Solorio.

In reflecting on the progress made in Chicago Public Schools over the last 30 years, creating new and better choices, especially in high schools, has made a real difference, not just in numbers and statistics, but in lives of young people, like Quincy Patterson.

Photos courtesy of Quincy Patterson.

How Quincy Patterson Became Virginia Tech’s First Quarterback to Major in Engineering syndicated from http://ift.tt/2i93Vhl

[ixvyupdates]

How Quincy Patterson Became Virginia Tech’s First Quarterback to Major in Engineering

If you follow Chicago’s high school football scene, you probably already know Quincy Patterson, the Solorio High School quarterback who drew lots of attention from college recruiters before committing to Virginia Tech last spring. But you probably don’t know he’ll be the first Virginia Tech quarterback in history to major in their highly-regarded engineering department.

This is all possible because Quincy’s high school academic record is just as stellar as his athletics: a 27 on the ACT, a slew of AP courses and a weighted GPA now hovering around a 4.4. And he earned all this despite some elementary school experiences that could have thrown off even the brightest kid.

How did he make it through so successfully? I’d chalk it up to two factors: a fiercely dedicated mother and school options that didn’t exist for two of his older siblings.

To the surprise of his family, Quincy spent his first three years of school at May Elementary in Austin, which was closed in 2013 for poor academic performance. His mom, Kimberly Dalton-Patterson, says the family had to scramble for housing after the building where they had been renting was suddenly sold.

The Sacrifice

They landed in May’s attendance area, despite Mom’s misgivings. “I knew about the neighborhood. I knew the school. I knew the problems,” said Dalton-Patterson. So, she stepped up at once to shield her baby from trouble. “I just made sure I was at the school every day.”

That sacrifice was nothing compared to the work Dalton-Patterson had already put in to support her children. After Quincy, her youngest was born, she decided to stay home and focus on him while keeping tabs on two of his older siblings at Gage Park High School.

Her decision gave Quincy the opportunity to go on public transit adventures across the city with his mom, get his thousands of curious questions answered one-on-one and spend lots of time taking things apart and learning to put them back together—the roots of his interest in engineering.

‘He Doesn’t Belong Here’

At May, Dalton-Patterson helped out in classrooms and on the playground. She remembers a lot of children who came from difficult family situations and a lot of teachers who didn’t know how to manage and support them. “I broke up a lot of fights,” she said. “I remember a lot of teachers struggling.” She was able to connect with the children in ways they couldn’t. “They were grateful, actually.”

Despite the challenges, Quincy’s first-grade teacher managed to make a difference. He sought out the students who were most interested in learning and made time for them. “Mr. Schroeder was great. He was real intuitive,” said Quincy.

Meanwhile, Dalton-Patterson was getting a strong, consistent message from the faculty about her son: “He doesn’t belong here.” Meaning, he’s too smart and well-behaved to be in this environment. He needs a better school.

‘I Really Taught Them Myself’

So Dalton-Patterson found a place to live in a different part of Austin, known as “The Italian Island” and close to amenities like Chicago’s beautiful Columbus Park and the suburb of Oak Park. In Quincy’s younger years, it was six tight-knit blocks of Black and Italian families where all the kids attended just two schools: the local Catholic school and the neighborhood school, George Rogers Clark.

“Clark was almost like a suburban school,” Quincy recalled. “It was very different. Nothing ever happened in school or in the neighborhood” that would threaten a child’s sense of safety. With no discipline issues to distract anyone, Quincy had the chance to fall in love with math and was showered with attention as a result. “I got a lot of awards.”

Dalton-Patterson says her son thrived in the new environment. “He became more open and got into extracurriculars” like school spelling bees and talent shows. But this happy situation only lasted for two years.

The family moved south just in time for Quincy to start fifth grade at Marquette Elementary in Gage Park. “It was terrible,” he recalls. On his second day of school, he witnessed a fight in the courtyard while waiting to enter the building. While fifth grade was bad, the next year was worse. “There were fights every day. No structure,” he said.

Dalton-Patterson was ready to move Quincy out of Marquette and put him in the KIPP charter where his next-older sister went. (She went on to graduate from Whitney Young and attend the University of Chicago.) But when the Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL) agreed to turn Marquette around, Dalton-Patterson decided to see if it would make a difference.

Plus, at bottom, she felt that she and her kids had final responsibility for their academic success. “All my kids, I really taught them myself,” she said. “Whatever they needed, I got it beforehand so they could do their best. Sam’s Club has good books—test preparation, study material.”

Turning Down Whitney Young for Solorio

To Quincy’s surprise, AUSL’s Marquette turnaround brought sweeping changes to the school. “We walked in the first day of seventh grade and there were like 30 security guards,” he said. The principal and teachers were all brand-new. Physical fights subsided, though there were still plenty of verbal arguments.

Quincy’s new teachers saw his talent right away, in the year that matters most for high school admissions. His reading and math teachers began giving him advanced work on top of what he had to do for class, so he would be better prepared not just to score well on the entrance exam for Chicago’s most elite high schools, but prepared to do the work.

This was the same year Quincy discovered football. Unlike many of Chicago’s high school players, he didn’t get his start in football very young, through the park district. He ran track as a youngster, but Marquette was the place he began exploring lots of athletics: football, basketball and baseball.

He met Solorio’s baseball coach while playing a game on their diamond. They hit it off and Quincy began to hear a lot about Solorio’s advantages: no fees for AP exams (unlike at Whitney Young), AP courses available as early as freshman year, athletic opportunities with more room to shine. Quincy had planned to follow his sister to Whitney Young, but Solorio began to capture his interest.

He told his mother he wanted to go there, and she took pains to check it out. “I came up before and after school and saw how the kids were. I watched the neighborhood.” She decided to let him attend a shadow day. Although Quincy aced the high school entrance exam and won a coveted spot at Whitney Young, he and his mom decided Solorio was the right fit.

Solorio Supported the Whole Family

They have not been disappointed. As a freshman, Quincy got his first classroom taste of engineering in an elective and loved it. “My egg didn’t break,” he says of the results of his design project creating something that would keep an egg from breaking when dropped from a second-story window.

Like most high school freshmen, Quincy struggled at first to manage his time and meet new levels of responsibility in sports and studies. But he got key support from his athletic director and AP Human Geography teacher, Jeff Niemiec. When Quincy’s grades slipped under the pressure, Niemiec “forced” him out of JV games and kept him focused on varsity football and studies.

“Freshman year was a little shaky in the beginning, but he got it under control,” Dalton-Patterson said. “I’ve loved it here.” In fact, Dalton-Patterson has loved it so much she now works in Solorio’s front office. This year she also became the first parent to win Solorio’s Mike Koldyke Friend of the Athletic Program award.

While it’s clear Quincy wouldn’t be where he is today without his dedicated mom, his educational trajectory also took a turn for the better thanks to AUSL, from their work turning around Marquette to providing an outstanding neighborhood high school, Solorio.

In reflecting on the progress made in Chicago Public Schools over the last 30 years, creating new and better choices, especially in high schools, has made a real difference, not just in numbers and statistics, but in lives of young people, like Quincy Patterson.

Photos courtesy of Quincy Patterson.

How Quincy Patterson Became Virginia Tech’s First Quarterback to Major in Engineering syndicated from http://ift.tt/2i93Vhl

[ixvyupdates]

How Quincy Patterson Became Virginia Tech’s First Quarterback to Major in Engineering

If you follow Chicago’s high school football scene, you probably already know Quincy Patterson, the Solorio High School quarterback who drew lots of attention from college recruiters before committing to Virginia Tech last spring. But you probably don’t know he’ll be the first Virginia Tech quarterback in history to major in their highly-regarded engineering department.

This is all possible because Quincy’s high school academic record is just as stellar as his athletics: a 27 on the ACT, a slew of AP courses and a weighted GPA now hovering around a 4.4. And he earned all this despite some elementary school experiences that could have thrown off even the brightest kid.

How did he make it through so successfully? I’d chalk it up to two factors: a fiercely dedicated mother and school options that didn’t exist for two of his older siblings.

To the surprise of his family, Quincy spent his first three years of school at May Elementary in Austin, which was closed in 2013 for poor academic performance. His mom, Kimberly Dalton-Patterson, says the family had to scramble for housing after the building where they had been renting was suddenly sold.

The Sacrifice

They landed in May’s attendance area, despite Mom’s misgivings. “I knew about the neighborhood. I knew the school. I knew the problems,” said Dalton-Patterson. So, she stepped up at once to shield her baby from trouble. “I just made sure I was at the school every day.”

That sacrifice was nothing compared to the work Dalton-Patterson had already put in to support her children. After Quincy, her youngest was born, she decided to stay home and focus on him while keeping tabs on two of his older siblings at Gage Park High School.

Her decision gave Quincy the opportunity to go on public transit adventures across the city with his mom, get his thousands of curious questions answered one-on-one and spend lots of time taking things apart and learning to put them back together—the roots of his interest in engineering.

‘He Doesn’t Belong Here’

At May, Dalton-Patterson helped out in classrooms and on the playground. She remembers a lot of children who came from difficult family situations and a lot of teachers who didn’t know how to manage and support them. “I broke up a lot of fights,” she said. “I remember a lot of teachers struggling.” She was able to connect with the children in ways they couldn’t. “They were grateful, actually.”

Despite the challenges, Quincy’s first-grade teacher managed to make a difference. He sought out the students who were most interested in learning and made time for them. “Mr. Schroeder was great. He was real intuitive,” said Quincy.

Meanwhile, Dalton-Patterson was getting a strong, consistent message from the faculty about her son: “He doesn’t belong here.” Meaning, he’s too smart and well-behaved to be in this environment. He needs a better school.

‘I Really Taught Them Myself’

So Dalton-Patterson found a place to live in a different part of Austin, known as “The Italian Island” and close to amenities like Chicago’s beautiful Columbus Park and the suburb of Oak Park. In Quincy’s younger years, it was six tight-knit blocks of Black and Italian families where all the kids attended just two schools: the local Catholic school and the neighborhood school, George Rogers Clark.

“Clark was almost like a suburban school,” Quincy recalled. “It was very different. Nothing ever happened in school or in the neighborhood” that would threaten a child’s sense of safety. With no discipline issues to distract anyone, Quincy had the chance to fall in love with math and was showered with attention as a result. “I got a lot of awards.”

Dalton-Patterson says her son thrived in the new environment. “He became more open and got into extracurriculars” like school spelling bees and talent shows. But this happy situation only lasted for two years.

The family moved south just in time for Quincy to start fifth grade at Marquette Elementary in Gage Park. “It was terrible,” he recalls. On his second day of school, he witnessed a fight in the courtyard while waiting to enter the building. While fifth grade was bad, the next year was worse. “There were fights every day. No structure,” he said.

Dalton-Patterson was ready to move Quincy out of Marquette and put him in the KIPP charter where his next-older sister went. (She went on to graduate from Whitney Young and attend the University of Chicago.) But when the Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL) agreed to turn Marquette around, Dalton-Patterson decided to see if it would make a difference.

Plus, at bottom, she felt that she and her kids had final responsibility for their academic success. “All my kids, I really taught them myself,” she said. “Whatever they needed, I got it beforehand so they could do their best. Sam’s Club has good books—test preparation, study material.”

Turning Down Whitney Young for Solorio

To Quincy’s surprise, AUSL’s Marquette turnaround brought sweeping changes to the school. “We walked in the first day of seventh grade and there were like 30 security guards,” he said. The principal and teachers were all brand-new. Physical fights subsided, though there were still plenty of verbal arguments.

Quincy’s new teachers saw his talent right away, in the year that matters most for high school admissions. His reading and math teachers began giving him advanced work on top of what he had to do for class, so he would be better prepared not just to score well on the entrance exam for Chicago’s most elite high schools, but prepared to do the work.

This was the same year Quincy discovered football. Unlike many of Chicago’s high school players, he didn’t get his start in football very young, through the park district. He ran track as a youngster, but Marquette was the place he began exploring lots of athletics: football, basketball and baseball.

He met Solorio’s baseball coach while playing a game on their diamond. They hit it off and Quincy began to hear a lot about Solorio’s advantages: no fees for AP exams (unlike at Whitney Young), AP courses available as early as freshman year, athletic opportunities with more room to shine. Quincy had planned to follow his sister to Whitney Young, but Solorio began to capture his interest.

He told his mother he wanted to go there, and she took pains to check it out. “I came up before and after school and saw how the kids were. I watched the neighborhood.” She decided to let him attend a shadow day. Although Quincy aced the high school entrance exam and won a coveted spot at Whitney Young, he and his mom decided Solorio was the right fit.

Solorio Supported the Whole Family

They have not been disappointed. As a freshman, Quincy got his first classroom taste of engineering in an elective and loved it. “My egg didn’t break,” he says of the results of his design project creating something that would keep an egg from breaking when dropped from a second-story window.

Like most high school freshmen, Quincy struggled at first to manage his time and meet new levels of responsibility in sports and studies. But he got key support from his athletic director and AP Human Geography teacher, Jeff Niemiec. When Quincy’s grades slipped under the pressure, Niemiec “forced” him out of JV games and kept him focused on varsity football and studies.

“Freshman year was a little shaky in the beginning, but he got it under control,” Dalton-Patterson said. “I’ve loved it here.” In fact, Dalton-Patterson has loved it so much she now works in Solorio’s front office. This year she also became the first parent to win Solorio’s Mike Koldyke Friend of the Athletic Program award.

While it’s clear Quincy wouldn’t be where he is today without his dedicated mom, his educational trajectory also took a turn for the better thanks to AUSL, from their work turning around Marquette to providing an outstanding neighborhood high school, Solorio.

In reflecting on the progress made in Chicago Public Schools over the last 30 years, creating new and better choices, especially in high schools, has made a real difference, not just in numbers and statistics, but in lives of young people, like Quincy Patterson.

Photos courtesy of Quincy Patterson.

How Quincy Patterson Became Virginia Tech’s First Quarterback to Major in Engineering syndicated from http://ift.tt/2i93Vhl

[ixvyupdates]

How Quincy Patterson Became Virginia Tech’s First Quarterback to Major in Engineering

If you follow Chicago’s high school football scene, you probably already know Quincy Patterson, the Solorio High School quarterback who drew lots of attention from college recruiters before committing to Virginia Tech last spring. But you probably don’t know he’ll be the first Virginia Tech quarterback in history to major in their highly-regarded engineering department.

This is all possible because Quincy’s high school academic record is just as stellar as his athletics: a 27 on the ACT, a slew of AP courses and a weighted GPA now hovering around a 4.4. And he earned all this despite some elementary school experiences that could have thrown off even the brightest kid.

How did he make it through so successfully? I’d chalk it up to two factors: a fiercely dedicated mother and school options that didn’t exist for two of his older siblings.

To the surprise of his family, Quincy spent his first three years of school at May Elementary in Austin, which was closed in 2013 for poor academic performance. His mom, Kimberly Dalton-Patterson, says the family had to scramble for housing after the building where they had been renting was suddenly sold.

The Sacrifice

They landed in May’s attendance area, despite Mom’s misgivings. “I knew about the neighborhood. I knew the school. I knew the problems,” said Dalton-Patterson. So, she stepped up at once to shield her baby from trouble. “I just made sure I was at the school every day.”

That sacrifice was nothing compared to the work Dalton-Patterson had already put in to support her children. After Quincy, her youngest was born, she decided to stay home and focus on him while keeping tabs on two of his older siblings at Gage Park High School.

Her decision gave Quincy the opportunity to go on public transit adventures across the city with his mom, get his thousands of curious questions answered one-on-one and spend lots of time taking things apart and learning to put them back together—the roots of his interest in engineering.

‘He Doesn’t Belong Here’

At May, Dalton-Patterson helped out in classrooms and on the playground. She remembers a lot of children who came from difficult family situations and a lot of teachers who didn’t know how to manage and support them. “I broke up a lot of fights,” she said. “I remember a lot of teachers struggling.” She was able to connect with the children in ways they couldn’t. “They were grateful, actually.”

Despite the challenges, Quincy’s first-grade teacher managed to make a difference. He sought out the students who were most interested in learning and made time for them. “Mr. Schroeder was great. He was real intuitive,” said Quincy.

Meanwhile, Dalton-Patterson was getting a strong, consistent message from the faculty about her son: “He doesn’t belong here.” Meaning, he’s too smart and well-behaved to be in this environment. He needs a better school.

‘I Really Taught Them Myself’

So Dalton-Patterson found a place to live in a different part of Austin, known as “The Italian Island” and close to amenities like Chicago’s beautiful Columbus Park and the suburb of Oak Park. In Quincy’s younger years, it was six tight-knit blocks of Black and Italian families where all the kids attended just two schools: the local Catholic school and the neighborhood school, George Rogers Clark.

“Clark was almost like a suburban school,” Quincy recalled. “It was very different. Nothing ever happened in school or in the neighborhood” that would threaten a child’s sense of safety. With no discipline issues to distract anyone, Quincy had the chance to fall in love with math and was showered with attention as a result. “I got a lot of awards.”

Dalton-Patterson says her son thrived in the new environment. “He became more open and got into extracurriculars” like school spelling bees and talent shows. But this happy situation only lasted for two years.

The family moved south just in time for Quincy to start fifth grade at Marquette Elementary in Gage Park. “It was terrible,” he recalls. On his second day of school, he witnessed a fight in the courtyard while waiting to enter the building. While fifth grade was bad, the next year was worse. “There were fights every day. No structure,” he said.

Dalton-Patterson was ready to move Quincy out of Marquette and put him in the KIPP charter where his next-older sister went. (She went on to graduate from Whitney Young and attend the University of Chicago.) But when the Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL) agreed to turn Marquette around, Dalton-Patterson decided to see if it would make a difference.

Plus, at bottom, she felt that she and her kids had final responsibility for their academic success. “All my kids, I really taught them myself,” she said. “Whatever they needed, I got it beforehand so they could do their best. Sam’s Club has good books—test preparation, study material.”

Turning Down Whitney Young for Solorio

To Quincy’s surprise, AUSL’s Marquette turnaround brought sweeping changes to the school. “We walked in the first day of seventh grade and there were like 30 security guards,” he said. The principal and teachers were all brand-new. Physical fights subsided, though there were still plenty of verbal arguments.

Quincy’s new teachers saw his talent right away, in the year that matters most for high school admissions. His reading and math teachers began giving him advanced work on top of what he had to do for class, so he would be better prepared not just to score well on the entrance exam for Chicago’s most elite high schools, but prepared to do the work.

This was the same year Quincy discovered football. Unlike many of Chicago’s high school players, he didn’t get his start in football very young, through the park district. He ran track as a youngster, but Marquette was the place he began exploring lots of athletics: football, basketball and baseball.

He met Solorio’s baseball coach while playing a game on their diamond. They hit it off and Quincy began to hear a lot about Solorio’s advantages: no fees for AP exams (unlike at Whitney Young), AP courses available as early as freshman year, athletic opportunities with more room to shine. Quincy had planned to follow his sister to Whitney Young, but Solorio began to capture his interest.

He told his mother he wanted to go there, and she took pains to check it out. “I came up before and after school and saw how the kids were. I watched the neighborhood.” She decided to let him attend a shadow day. Although Quincy aced the high school entrance exam and won a coveted spot at Whitney Young, he and his mom decided Solorio was the right fit.

Solorio Supported the Whole Family

They have not been disappointed. As a freshman, Quincy got his first classroom taste of engineering in an elective and loved it. “My egg didn’t break,” he says of the results of his design project creating something that would keep an egg from breaking when dropped from a second-story window.

Like most high school freshmen, Quincy struggled at first to manage his time and meet new levels of responsibility in sports and studies. But he got key support from his athletic director and AP Human Geography teacher, Jeff Niemiec. When Quincy’s grades slipped under the pressure, Niemiec “forced” him out of JV games and kept him focused on varsity football and studies.

“Freshman year was a little shaky in the beginning, but he got it under control,” Dalton-Patterson said. “I’ve loved it here.” In fact, Dalton-Patterson has loved it so much she now works in Solorio’s front office. This year she also became the first parent to win Solorio’s Mike Koldyke Friend of the Athletic Program award.

While it’s clear Quincy wouldn’t be where he is today without his dedicated mom, his educational trajectory also took a turn for the better thanks to AUSL, from their work turning around Marquette to providing an outstanding neighborhood high school, Solorio.

In reflecting on the progress made in Chicago Public Schools over the last 30 years, creating new and better choices, especially in high schools, has made a real difference, not just in numbers and statistics, but in lives of young people, like Quincy Patterson.

Photos courtesy of Quincy Patterson.

How Quincy Patterson Became Virginia Tech’s First Quarterback to Major in Engineering syndicated from http://ift.tt/2i93Vhl

[ixvyupdates]

How Quincy Patterson Became Virginia Tech’s First Quarterback to Major in Engineering

If you follow Chicago’s high school football scene, you probably already know Quincy Patterson, the Solorio High School quarterback who drew lots of attention from college recruiters before committing to Virginia Tech last spring. But you probably don’t know he’ll be the first Virginia Tech quarterback in history to major in their highly-regarded engineering department.

This is all possible because Quincy’s high school academic record is just as stellar as his athletics: a 27 on the ACT, a slew of AP courses and a weighted GPA now hovering around a 4.4. And he earned all this despite some elementary school experiences that could have thrown off even the brightest kid.

How did he make it through so successfully? I’d chalk it up to two factors: a fiercely dedicated mother and school options that didn’t exist for two of his older siblings.

To the surprise of his family, Quincy spent his first three years of school at May Elementary in Austin, which was closed in 2013 for poor academic performance. His mom, Kimberly Dalton-Patterson, says the family had to scramble for housing after the building where they had been renting was suddenly sold.

The Sacrifice

They landed in May’s attendance area, despite Mom’s misgivings. “I knew about the neighborhood. I knew the school. I knew the problems,” said Dalton-Patterson. So, she stepped up at once to shield her baby from trouble. “I just made sure I was at the school every day.”

That sacrifice was nothing compared to the work Dalton-Patterson had already put in to support her children. After Quincy, her youngest was born, she decided to stay home and focus on him while keeping tabs on two of his older siblings at Gage Park High School.

Her decision gave Quincy the opportunity to go on public transit adventures across the city with his mom, get his thousands of curious questions answered one-on-one and spend lots of time taking things apart and learning to put them back together—the roots of his interest in engineering.

‘He Doesn’t Belong Here’

At May, Dalton-Patterson helped out in classrooms and on the playground. She remembers a lot of children who came from difficult family situations and a lot of teachers who didn’t know how to manage and support them. “I broke up a lot of fights,” she said. “I remember a lot of teachers struggling.” She was able to connect with the children in ways they couldn’t. “They were grateful, actually.”

Despite the challenges, Quincy’s first-grade teacher managed to make a difference. He sought out the students who were most interested in learning and made time for them. “Mr. Schroeder was great. He was real intuitive,” said Quincy.

Meanwhile, Dalton-Patterson was getting a strong, consistent message from the faculty about her son: “He doesn’t belong here.” Meaning, he’s too smart and well-behaved to be in this environment. He needs a better school.

‘I Really Taught Them Myself’

So Dalton-Patterson found a place to live in a different part of Austin, known as “The Italian Island” and close to amenities like Chicago’s beautiful Columbus Park and the suburb of Oak Park. In Quincy’s younger years, it was six tight-knit blocks of Black and Italian families where all the kids attended just two schools: the local Catholic school and the neighborhood school, George Rogers Clark.

“Clark was almost like a suburban school,” Quincy recalled. “It was very different. Nothing ever happened in school or in the neighborhood” that would threaten a child’s sense of safety. With no discipline issues to distract anyone, Quincy had the chance to fall in love with math and was showered with attention as a result. “I got a lot of awards.”

Dalton-Patterson says her son thrived in the new environment. “He became more open and got into extracurriculars” like school spelling bees and talent shows. But this happy situation only lasted for two years.

The family moved south just in time for Quincy to start fifth grade at Marquette Elementary in Gage Park. “It was terrible,” he recalls. On his second day of school, he witnessed a fight in the courtyard while waiting to enter the building. While fifth grade was bad, the next year was worse. “There were fights every day. No structure,” he said.

Dalton-Patterson was ready to move Quincy out of Marquette and put him in the KIPP charter where his next-older sister went. (She went on to graduate from Whitney Young and attend the University of Chicago.) But when the Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL) agreed to turn Marquette around, Dalton-Patterson decided to see if it would make a difference.

Plus, at bottom, she felt that she and her kids had final responsibility for their academic success. “All my kids, I really taught them myself,” she said. “Whatever they needed, I got it beforehand so they could do their best. Sam’s Club has good books—test preparation, study material.”

Turning Down Whitney Young for Solorio

To Quincy’s surprise, AUSL’s Marquette turnaround brought sweeping changes to the school. “We walked in the first day of seventh grade and there were like 30 security guards,” he said. The principal and teachers were all brand-new. Physical fights subsided, though there were still plenty of verbal arguments.

Quincy’s new teachers saw his talent right away, in the year that matters most for high school admissions. His reading and math teachers began giving him advanced work on top of what he had to do for class, so he would be better prepared not just to score well on the entrance exam for Chicago’s most elite high schools, but prepared to do the work.

This was the same year Quincy discovered football. Unlike many of Chicago’s high school players, he didn’t get his start in football very young, through the park district. He ran track as a youngster, but Marquette was the place he began exploring lots of athletics: football, basketball and baseball.

He met Solorio’s baseball coach while playing a game on their diamond. They hit it off and Quincy began to hear a lot about Solorio’s advantages: no fees for AP exams (unlike at Whitney Young), AP courses available as early as freshman year, athletic opportunities with more room to shine. Quincy had planned to follow his sister to Whitney Young, but Solorio began to capture his interest.

He told his mother he wanted to go there, and she took pains to check it out. “I came up before and after school and saw how the kids were. I watched the neighborhood.” She decided to let him attend a shadow day. Although Quincy aced the high school entrance exam and won a coveted spot at Whitney Young, he and his mom decided Solorio was the right fit.

Solorio Supported the Whole Family

They have not been disappointed. As a freshman, Quincy got his first classroom taste of engineering in an elective and loved it. “My egg didn’t break,” he says of the results of his design project creating something that would keep an egg from breaking when dropped from a second-story window.

Like most high school freshmen, Quincy struggled at first to manage his time and meet new levels of responsibility in sports and studies. But he got key support from his athletic director and AP Human Geography teacher, Jeff Niemiec. When Quincy’s grades slipped under the pressure, Niemiec “forced” him out of JV games and kept him focused on varsity football and studies.

“Freshman year was a little shaky in the beginning, but he got it under control,” Dalton-Patterson said. “I’ve loved it here.” In fact, Dalton-Patterson has loved it so much she now works in Solorio’s front office. This year she also became the first parent to win Solorio’s Mike Koldyke Friend of the Athletic Program award.

While it’s clear Quincy wouldn’t be where he is today without his dedicated mom, his educational trajectory also took a turn for the better thanks to AUSL, from their work turning around Marquette to providing an outstanding neighborhood high school, Solorio.

In reflecting on the progress made in Chicago Public Schools over the last 30 years, creating new and better choices, especially in high schools, has made a real difference, not just in numbers and statistics, but in lives of young people, like Quincy Patterson.

Photos courtesy of Quincy Patterson.

How Quincy Patterson Became Virginia Tech’s First Quarterback to Major in Engineering syndicated from http://ift.tt/2i93Vhl

[ixvyupdates]

How Quincy Patterson Became Virginia Tech’s First Quarterback to Major in Engineering

If you follow Chicago’s high school football scene, you probably already know Quincy Patterson, the Solorio High School quarterback who drew lots of attention from college recruiters before committing to Virginia Tech last spring. But you probably don’t know he’ll be the first Virginia Tech quarterback in history to major in their highly-regarded engineering department.

This is all possible because Quincy’s high school academic record is just as stellar as his athletics: a 27 on the ACT, a slew of AP courses and a weighted GPA now hovering around a 4.4. And he earned all this despite some elementary school experiences that could have thrown off even the brightest kid.

How did he make it through so successfully? I’d chalk it up to two factors: a fiercely dedicated mother and school options that didn’t exist for two of his older siblings.

To the surprise of his family, Quincy spent his first three years of school at May Elementary in Austin, which was closed in 2013 for poor academic performance. His mom, Kimberly Dalton-Patterson, says the family had to scramble for housing after the building where they had been renting was suddenly sold.

The Sacrifice

They landed in May’s attendance area, despite Mom’s misgivings. “I knew about the neighborhood. I knew the school. I knew the problems,” said Dalton-Patterson. So, she stepped up at once to shield her baby from trouble. “I just made sure I was at the school every day.”

That sacrifice was nothing compared to the work Dalton-Patterson had already put in to support her children. After Quincy, her youngest was born, she decided to stay home and focus on him while keeping tabs on two of his older siblings at Gage Park High School.

Her decision gave Quincy the opportunity to go on public transit adventures across the city with his mom, get his thousands of curious questions answered one-on-one and spend lots of time taking things apart and learning to put them back together—the roots of his interest in engineering.

‘He Doesn’t Belong Here’

At May, Dalton-Patterson helped out in classrooms and on the playground. She remembers a lot of children who came from difficult family situations and a lot of teachers who didn’t know how to manage and support them. “I broke up a lot of fights,” she said. “I remember a lot of teachers struggling.” She was able to connect with the children in ways they couldn’t. “They were grateful, actually.”

Despite the challenges, Quincy’s first-grade teacher managed to make a difference. He sought out the students who were most interested in learning and made time for them. “Mr. Schroeder was great. He was real intuitive,” said Quincy.

Meanwhile, Dalton-Patterson was getting a strong, consistent message from the faculty about her son: “He doesn’t belong here.” Meaning, he’s too smart and well-behaved to be in this environment. He needs a better school.

‘I Really Taught Them Myself’

So Dalton-Patterson found a place to live in a different part of Austin, known as “The Italian Island” and close to amenities like Chicago’s beautiful Columbus Park and the suburb of Oak Park. In Quincy’s younger years, it was six tight-knit blocks of Black and Italian families where all the kids attended just two schools: the local Catholic school and the neighborhood school, George Rogers Clark.

“Clark was almost like a suburban school,” Quincy recalled. “It was very different. Nothing ever happened in school or in the neighborhood” that would threaten a child’s sense of safety. With no discipline issues to distract anyone, Quincy had the chance to fall in love with math and was showered with attention as a result. “I got a lot of awards.”

Dalton-Patterson says her son thrived in the new environment. “He became more open and got into extracurriculars” like school spelling bees and talent shows. But this happy situation only lasted for two years.

The family moved south just in time for Quincy to start fifth grade at Marquette Elementary in Gage Park. “It was terrible,” he recalls. On his second day of school, he witnessed a fight in the courtyard while waiting to enter the building. While fifth grade was bad, the next year was worse. “There were fights every day. No structure,” he said.

Dalton-Patterson was ready to move Quincy out of Marquette and put him in the KIPP charter where his next-older sister went. (She went on to graduate from Whitney Young and attend the University of Chicago.) But when the Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL) agreed to turn Marquette around, Dalton-Patterson decided to see if it would make a difference.

Plus, at bottom, she felt that she and her kids had final responsibility for their academic success. “All my kids, I really taught them myself,” she said. “Whatever they needed, I got it beforehand so they could do their best. Sam’s Club has good books—test preparation, study material.”

Turning Down Whitney Young for Solorio

To Quincy’s surprise, AUSL’s Marquette turnaround brought sweeping changes to the school. “We walked in the first day of seventh grade and there were like 30 security guards,” he said. The principal and teachers were all brand-new. Physical fights subsided, though there were still plenty of verbal arguments.

Quincy’s new teachers saw his talent right away, in the year that matters most for high school admissions. His reading and math teachers began giving him advanced work on top of what he had to do for class, so he would be better prepared not just to score well on the entrance exam for Chicago’s most elite high schools, but prepared to do the work.

This was the same year Quincy discovered football. Unlike many of Chicago’s high school players, he didn’t get his start in football very young, through the park district. He ran track as a youngster, but Marquette was the place he began exploring lots of athletics: football, basketball and baseball.

He met Solorio’s baseball coach while playing a game on their diamond. They hit it off and Quincy began to hear a lot about Solorio’s advantages: no fees for AP exams (unlike at Whitney Young), AP courses available as early as freshman year, athletic opportunities with more room to shine. Quincy had planned to follow his sister to Whitney Young, but Solorio began to capture his interest.

He told his mother he wanted to go there, and she took pains to check it out. “I came up before and after school and saw how the kids were. I watched the neighborhood.” She decided to let him attend a shadow day. Although Quincy aced the high school entrance exam and won a coveted spot at Whitney Young, he and his mom decided Solorio was the right fit.

Solorio Supported the Whole Family

They have not been disappointed. As a freshman, Quincy got his first classroom taste of engineering in an elective and loved it. “My egg didn’t break,” he says of the results of his design project creating something that would keep an egg from breaking when dropped from a second-story window.

Like most high school freshmen, Quincy struggled at first to manage his time and meet new levels of responsibility in sports and studies. But he got key support from his athletic director and AP Human Geography teacher, Jeff Niemiec. When Quincy’s grades slipped under the pressure, Niemiec “forced” him out of JV games and kept him focused on varsity football and studies.

“Freshman year was a little shaky in the beginning, but he got it under control,” Dalton-Patterson said. “I’ve loved it here.” In fact, Dalton-Patterson has loved it so much she now works in Solorio’s front office. This year she also became the first parent to win Solorio’s Mike Koldyke Friend of the Athletic Program award.

While it’s clear Quincy wouldn’t be where he is today without his dedicated mom, his educational trajectory also took a turn for the better thanks to AUSL, from their work turning around Marquette to providing an outstanding neighborhood high school, Solorio.

In reflecting on the progress made in Chicago Public Schools over the last 30 years, creating new and better choices, especially in high schools, has made a real difference, not just in numbers and statistics, but in lives of young people, like Quincy Patterson.

Photo courtesy of Quincy Patterson.

How Quincy Patterson Became Virginia Tech’s First Quarterback to Major in Engineering syndicated from http://ift.tt/2i93Vhl

[ixvyupdates]

How Quincy Patterson Became Virginia Tech’s First Quarterback to Major in Engineering

If you follow Chicago’s high school football scene, you probably already know Quincy Patterson, the Solorio High School quarterback who drew lots of attention from college recruiters before committing to Virginia Tech last spring. But you probably don’t know he’ll be the first Virginia Tech quarterback in history to major in their highly-regarded engineering department.

This is all possible because Quincy’s high school academic record is just as stellar as his athletics: a 27 on the ACT, a slew of AP courses and a weighted GPA now hovering around a 4.4. And he earned all this despite some elementary school experiences that could have thrown off even the brightest kid.

How did he make it through so successfully? I’d chalk it up to two factors: a fiercely dedicated mother and school options that didn’t exist for two of his older siblings.

To the surprise of his family, Quincy spent his first three years of school at May Elementary in Austin, which was closed in 2013 for poor academic performance. His mom, Kimberly Dalton-Patterson, says the family had to scramble for housing after the building where they had been renting was suddenly sold.

The Sacrifice

They landed in May’s attendance area, despite Mom’s misgivings. “I knew about the neighborhood. I knew the school. I knew the problems,” said Dalton-Patterson. So, she stepped up at once to shield her baby from trouble. “I just made sure I was at the school every day.”

That sacrifice was nothing compared to the work Dalton-Patterson had already put in to support her children. After Quincy, her youngest was born, she decided to stay home and focus on him while keeping tabs on two of his older siblings at Gage Park High School.

Her decision gave Quincy the opportunity to go on public transit adventures across the city with his mom, get his thousands of curious questions answered one-on-one and spend lots of time taking things apart and learning to put them back together—the roots of his interest in engineering.

‘He Doesn’t Belong Here’

At May, Dalton-Patterson helped out in classrooms and on the playground. She remembers a lot of children who came from difficult family situations and a lot of teachers who didn’t know how to manage and support them. “I broke up a lot of fights,” she said. “I remember a lot of teachers struggling.” She was able to connect with the children in ways they couldn’t. “They were grateful, actually.”

Despite the challenges, Quincy’s first-grade teacher managed to make a difference. He sought out the students who were most interested in learning and made time for them. “Mr. Schroeder was great. He was real intuitive,” said Quincy.

Meanwhile, Dalton-Patterson was getting a strong, consistent message from the faculty about her son: “He doesn’t belong here.” Meaning, he’s too smart and well-behaved to be in this environment. He needs a better school.

‘I Really Taught Them Myself’

So Dalton-Patterson found a place to live in a different part of Austin, known as “The Italian Island” and close to amenities like Chicago’s beautiful Columbus Park and the suburb of Oak Park. In Quincy’s younger years, it was six tight-knit blocks of Black and Italian families where all the kids attended just two schools: the local Catholic school and the neighborhood school, George Rogers Clark.

“Clark was almost like a suburban school,” Quincy recalled. “It was very different. Nothing ever happened in school or in the neighborhood” that would threaten a child’s sense of safety. With no discipline issues to distract anyone, Quincy had the chance to fall in love with math and was showered with attention as a result. “I got a lot of awards.”

Dalton-Patterson says her son thrived in the new environment. “He became more open and got into extracurriculars” like school spelling bees and talent shows. But this happy situation only lasted for two years.

The family moved south just in time for Quincy to start fifth grade at Marquette Elementary in Gage Park. “It was terrible,” he recalls. On his second day of school, he witnessed a fight in the courtyard while waiting to enter the building. While fifth grade was bad, the next year was worse. “There were fights every day. No structure,” he said.

Dalton-Patterson was ready to move Quincy out of Marquette and put him in the KIPP charter where his next-older sister went. (She went on to graduate from Whitney Young and attend the University of Chicago.) But when the Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL) agreed to turn Marquette around, Dalton-Patterson decided to see if it would make a difference.

Plus, at bottom, she felt that she and her kids had final responsibility for their academic success. “All my kids, I really taught them myself,” she said. “Whatever they needed, I got it beforehand so they could do their best. Sam’s Club has good books—test preparation, study material.”

Turning Down Whitney Young for Solorio

To Quincy’s surprise, AUSL’s Marquette turnaround brought sweeping changes to the school. “We walked in the first day of seventh grade and there were like 30 security guards,” he said. The principal and teachers were all brand-new. Physical fights subsided, though there were still plenty of verbal arguments.

Quincy’s new teachers saw his talent right away, in the year that matters most for high school admissions. His reading and math teachers began giving him advanced work on top of what he had to do for class, so he would be better prepared not just to score well on the entrance exam for Chicago’s most elite high schools, but prepared to do the work.

This was the same year Quincy discovered football. Unlike many of Chicago’s high school players, he didn’t get his start in football very young, through the park district. He ran track as a youngster, but Marquette was the place he began exploring lots of athletics: football, basketball and baseball.

He met Solorio’s baseball coach while playing a game on their diamond. They hit it off and Quincy began to hear a lot about Solorio’s advantages: no fees for AP exams (unlike at Whitney Young), AP courses available as early as freshman year, athletic opportunities with more room to shine. Quincy had planned to follow his sister to Whitney Young, but Solorio began to capture his interest.

He told his mother he wanted to go there, and she took pains to check it out. “I came up before and after school and saw how the kids were. I watched the neighborhood.” She decided to let him attend a shadow day. Although Quincy aced the high school entrance exam and won a coveted spot at Whitney Young, he and his mom decided Solorio was the right fit.

Solorio Supported the Whole Family

They have not been disappointed. As a freshman, Quincy got his first classroom taste of engineering in an elective and loved it. “My egg didn’t break,” he says of the results of his design project creating something that would keep an egg from breaking when dropped from a second-story window.

Like most high school freshmen, Quincy struggled at first to manage his time and meet new levels of responsibility in sports and studies. But he got key support from his athletic director and AP Human Geography teacher, Jeff Niemiec. When Quincy’s grades slipped under the pressure, Niemiec “forced” him out of JV games and kept him focused on varsity football and studies.

“Freshman year was a little shaky in the beginning, but he got it under control,” Dalton-Patterson said. “I’ve loved it here.” In fact, Dalton-Patterson has loved it so much she now works in Solorio’s front office. This year she also became the first parent to win Solorio’s Mike Koldyke Friend of the Athletic Program award.

While it’s clear Quincy wouldn’t be where he is today without his dedicated mom, his educational trajectory also took a turn for the better thanks to AUSL, from their work turning around Marquette to providing an outstanding neighborhood high school, Solorio.

In reflecting on the progress made in Chicago Public Schools over the last 30 years, creating new and better choices, especially in high schools, has made a real difference, not just in numbers and statistics, but in lives of young people, like Quincy Patterson.

Photo courtesy of Quincy Patterson.

How Quincy Patterson Became Virginia Tech’s First Quarterback to Major in Engineering syndicated from http://ift.tt/2i93Vhl