I will always consider myself a Chicagoan at heart. After all, I have lived in the Chicago suburbs all my life. Over the course of this week, however, I experienced a very different side of the city while participating in the Chicago Urban Education Program, located in the northern Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago. My assignments varied throughout the week, but my focus was to discover the diversity and multiculturalism within a large urban setting, and in so doing, apply my experiences within the Chicago Public School System to my future education career.

Chicago has always been a city full of small ethnic neighborhoods. My daily commute to Kenwood Academy in the near south Hyde Park neighborhood acquainted me better with the diversity within the city in general. I begin my one-hour commute first by getting onto the Chicago Transit Authority’s (CTA) Red Line “El” train through numerous regions of the city that all vary by populace income, race, and ethnicities. Once downtown, I jump on a city bus that takes me via Lake Shore Drive to Chicago’s near south side and onto Kenwood Academy’s campus. Hyde Park, perhaps one of the most racially mixed areas of the city, possesses a demographic medium that includes a populace that is 40% Caucasian, 40% African American, 10% Asian, with the remaining population a mix of Hispanic and other smaller ethnicities.

For the last week, I have taught in Kenwood Academy, a small Chicago Public School magnet program that includes an annex for gifted students called the Academic Center. (http://www.kenwoodacademy.org) My host teacher and I both teach within the Academic Center. I must warn readers that all preconceived notions about urban education must be left at home if one is to enter this part of the school. The Center’s student body is 90% African-American students, 60% whom are economically disadvantaged, but the center itself is a testament to parent and teacher support and gives off the air that all students have the ability and intelligence to succeed in the academic world.

On Friday, I led a discussion over the first half of A Catcher in the Rye, with the 24 students in my English I class listening to both the comments and of myself and their peers with respect and curiosity. As a new teacher, one can never imagine how gratifying it is to be the mediator of the reward of all secondary school educators, active engagement.

My experience at Kenwood Academy provided me with a definite taste of a diverse environment, one in which I am the actual minority. Nevertheless, I never considered this a huge deal. The students that I observed and worked with over the past week were some of the best within the Chicago Public School system. In a word, my experiences teaching in the nation’s third largest metropolitan area was enlightening to say the least.