Barack Obama has promised change and renewal in a variety of areas, including ecology and social responsibility. At a small secondary school in the city of New Haven in the state of Connecticut, the students can't wait to follow in the footsteps of the president-elect.
Common Ground High School grows vegetables that are served in the school's cafeteria.
(flickr photo by Nancy Eve Cohen © Connecticut Public Radio)
According to Director of Development and Community Engagement Joel Tolman, visitors to the Common Ground High School are always surprised about the chickens and roosters running free in the grounds.
The high school features an organic farm, and borders on the densely forested West Rock Ridge State Park. Joel Tolman says:
"Common Ground focuses on environmental issues. We are a school which focuses on the urban environment. We use the city, the state park and our farm as outdoors classrooms for our curriculum".
Every child of school age in this city of 125,000 can apply, but most students choose a more traditional school. Common Ground has no selective admittance policy. Whenever there are more applications than places, a lottery decides. The school emphasises that it wants to fill the 150 available places with motivated students who want to make a difference to their own environment and to the world, explains Joel Tolman:
"We want to raise a new generation of leaders in the field of environmental issues. So we ask potential students whether they want to help reducing the ridiculously high number of asthma patients in New Haven, which is caused by air pollution. We ask them what they want to do to help fight a global problem such as climate change".TalkIn the cafeteria, a group of students practises a talk,which they are scheduled to hold in the next hour, on biomass as fuel. These students chose this high school because here they can work with farm animals.
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On a bulletin board near the school's entrance, somebody put up Barack Obama's slogan ‘Yes, we can!' New Haven has a large Afro-American demographic, which is reflected in the ethnic make-up of the classes at Common Ground: two-thirds of the students are African-American.
Electoral victory
Obama's election victory and his promises for the future are the subject of frequent debate. English teacher Keith Lambert had his students read Othello, Shakespeare's tragedy about a powerful black general who becomes the victim of a plot hatched by Jago, his white enemy. The teacher says that his students immediately drew comparisons with the daily news. They fear for Obama's safety. One pupil named Stephen says:
"I can see a parallel with Othello, because Obama is black and everybody is talking about how he will be killed. I just pray that it won't happen".
However, the 17-year-old student feels mainly inspired by the electoral victory.
"If everybody was a little more like Barack Obama, we would have a better future".
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A number of students are considering doing one year of community service before going to university. "Because", one of the students says, "Obama can't change the world all by himself".
Director Tolman says the next US president is both an example and a confirmation of what the 11-year-old high school stands for.
"With him as a role model, we sense a new kind of energy in what we are trying to achieve with our students".
* RNW translation (gsh)
Tags: Barack Obama, Common Ground High School, Connecticut, environment, New Haven, organic farm, Othello