The Starfish in All of Us

“In the United States, one third of all students who enter high school don’t graduate.” “As of 2000, 10.9% of 16 to 24 year olds were dropouts.” “Young adults whose families are in the lowest 20% of incomes are six times more likely to drop out than those whose families are in the upper 20%.” “The U.S. Department of Corrections indicates that 82% of all prisoners are dropouts.”

    It did not take another report for me to realize that there was failure to educate the future leading citizens and members of the United States, and that our school was at the height of such statistics. I did not fully understand why so many students on our campus lacked motivation, lacked their own understanding that education is the only means of success, and why they could not see what I saw or held important. One day, in an effort to inform our high school juniors, we were gathered in our career center where the topic of discussion would be graduation requirements and college entrance exams. And before our councilor could utter a single word about the required four years of English, she looked directly at all of us, all thirty-five Advanced Placement History students, she asked, “How is it that we can get all of you to care? Why can’t everyone else on campus care? What can we do to see an entire senior class graduate and move onto a college?” At once, these and many more questions ran through my head, this and awareness that I could no longer remain a spectator, that with my own comprehension of education I had to fulfill a duty in assisting those who remained unmindful of understanding.

    I began research, finding the variety of reasons why students were dropping out – they just don’t like school, poor grades and not being able to keep up with course work, students become pregnant forcing them to leave, work to support their family and can’t manage both school and work, cite concern for their personal safety on campus, don’t get along with other students or their teachers, drugs, alcohol, and among other reasons minority membership, unstable or stressful home life, and socioeconomic factors.

    I immediately knew that I had to do something and that with over three-thousand students on our campus I would not be able to reach out to all. I had to help a few students first in order to make the largest impact; I was then reminded of the starfish story, written by Loren C. Eiseley, through which I was inspired to create and establish an organization I coined, The Starfish Project.

    Once there was a little boy walking down a beach littered with thousands of starfish – as he threw one starfish after another into the water, a man approaches and asked what he was doing. “I’m saving the starfish,” he replied. “There are too many,” the man said, “you can’t possibly make a difference.” “You may be right,” said the boy, as he threw another starfish into the water, “but for that one I just did.” (Eiseley)

    The Starfish Project was created with my belief in an impact through helping one student at a time. Its goal is to create and develop within Anaheim High School effective academic and disciplinary practices and opportunities that will allow students to excel in their classes and reach graduation requirements, all through the use of approaches created by the students and for the students, with the guidance of teachers and faculty.

    And so, the organizations first project began in one classroom, a classroom that roomed students whose junior high could not afford to hold them back, they could not be retained. They were the first group of students in the history of Anaheim High School to be placed on a five-year high school plan, the Academy Students. I walked into that classroom every week along with the rest of the organization’s members. We told them everything and taught them everything that all their teachers were, math, English, what it takes to graduate, hoping they would listen to someone like them, another student. We tutored students whose priorities did not include school, mentored those brought up in families affiliated with gangs and those brought up in neighborhoods affiliated with violence. After weeks, months, I saw them progress, go from a zero percentage math test after math test to receiving perfect scores.

    Improvements followed more improvements. Yet the proudest moment came from a student by the name of Nery Balderama. We no longer walked into that seventh period class to find his desk empty. He showed up to school every day, and no longer spent school hours cleaning up graffiti by the railroad tracks. After weeks of tutoring and mentoring, but most importantly his own efforts, Nery began the school year with a 0.1 GPA and ended it with a 3.0. Nery’s breakthrough, and that of the rest of the Academy Students, allowed them the opportunity to be back on a normal four-year plan. And I achieved a success, not found in a title, but through the significance I have made in the lives of these first few students, and in the life of one person.

    Above all, the ultimate attainment of positive change would mean implementing aspiration within students, to leave behind them an impression on this earth aimed at changing the life of one and all, simplifying the complexities of life for those who cannot themselves and making living an undertaking worthwhile. As I have grown up and matured, I have learned through much experience and have sought to become a person who focuses more on bettering the lives of those around me, and avoid the natural humanistic tendency to spend time and energy on materialistic goals.

    I want all look back at High School and not just remember a pep-rally they organized, a banquet they advertised, or a dance they attended, what makes the course of a student’s high school career, and most importantly a person’s life momentous is being able to look back and recognize that we were not only successful – that we were significant.