City-As-School: Remotely mentoring Students in Human-Centered Design during Covid-19 school closure
City-As-School is more than a public high school—it is an immersive learning community in the heart of New York City. Founded as an independent alternative high school by progressive educators in 1972, it has offered its unique, focused experiential education to generations of students; its notable alumni include actor Mekhi Phifer, artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, singer/songwriter Patty Smyth, rapper Princess Nokia, and more. Tens of thousands of other students have gone on to fulfilling careers in a range of fields—fashion, technology, the arts including culinary arts, music, law, medicine and more—some even coming full circle to return as teachers at City-As-School.
The school’s primary objective is to offer students a multitude of learning experiences that encompass the depth and breadth of New York City’s businesses and resources. A diverse base of students apply from any of the public, private or parochial schools within the five boroughs (including elite specialized high schools) as 11th- and 12th-grade transfer students. What students have in common is a drive to excel and graduate high school despite the fact their previous high schools failed to meet either their socio-emotional or learning needs.
Students graduate with life-long skills and the self-confidence to make their impact in the world. Students act as docents throughout the American Museum of Natural History; work in laboratories at Mt. Sinai Adolescent Health Center; assist at the Manhattan Borough President’s Office; intern with curators at The International Center of Photography; work with master bakers at Balthazar Bakery; assist in the NYS Supreme Court: Criminal Division. These internships, along with seminar-style classroom learning, form the basis of learning in math, history, English, science and other academic areas. All student-learning experiences are designed to provide background information and skill acquisition through the attainment of practical knowledge.
rayogram has mentored City-As-School student interns for over twenty years. We work closely with students in weekly sessions during the school year, sharing our experience and expertise as the founders of a now 25-year-old creative agency—focusing on a human-centered design approach to creative problem solving. Students work alongside us to develop creative strategies, draft information architecture, write copy, research photos, design user interfaces, code, and participate in client presentations.
We co-initiated and coordinated an annual Mentors’ Learning Exchange. As members of the board of advisors since 2015, we worked closely with the principal, internship coordinator and other educators to develop creative strategies for retaining current mentors and recruiting new ones. We helped to coordinate an annual Mentors’ Learning Exchange, and assisted in developing materials and protocols to strengthen the bond between student interns and mentors.
Most recently, we helped City-As-School respond to the loss of in-person internships during the Covid-19 crisis. We moved our rayogram internship online and expanded our capacity to more than a dozen students. After reconfiguring our curriculum to explore how to actually start a Creative Agency, students created a mock-agency and took on the school itself as its first client with a specific challenge of relaunching its website. In the course of the internship students learned about the steps to start a new business, conduct stakeholder interviews in aid in discovery, research and design Information architecture using human-centered design, user-interface and user-experience design.
City-As-School students thrive as they are guided by collaborative educators and mentors like rayogram who value each students’ personal learning style, freedom and accountability.
“From the very start of my first internship, I felt understood, and like I was learning and a part of things. Whether contributing background information for a greater project, or learning a whole new skill like video editing, I was enthralled and engaged. Though not every day was exciting, I knew that each day I most certainly would learn something. Through this, I learned the invaluable lesson that doing little things every day can culminate in something big and important in your life.”—CAS Alumni Kamili Saint-Leger
“Our relationship with rayogram was seamless from the start, as they were genuinely interested in learning about and supporting our program as mentors and members of our internship advisory board. They are committed to our school, our students, and have the unique understanding that City-As has a legacy to uphold to keep paying the work that we do forward for generations of students that walk through our doors.
Recently, partnering with City-As to help start a creative agency as a teaching tool for our students that serves our community just became an organic extension of the work that we've done together over the years. We cherish rayogram's valuable experience, patience, and willingness to listen. Their work is and has always been very exciting. “—Melissa Birnbaum Arts Educator/Internship Coordinator City-As-School High School