Excerpts from roundtable discussion with TryUMF students about what makes the program special, what they've learned, combating low expectations, and making change.

Participants include: Jermaine Alexander, Marvin Balan, DeAndre Benjamin, Nicole Borst, Luke Brekke-Miesner, Latisha Brown, JaQuan Bryant, Mikaela Franceschi, Robert Gainer III, Rayna E. Garcia, Melissa Massey, Seyha Men, Traci Newman, Leticia Rubalcava, and Audra Tipton.

On what sets TryUMF apart

Luke: Number one you have the workload, we do a lot, we work with sociology, oppression, masculinity, feminism...I'm talking about reading, I'm talking about videos, I'm talking about discussions, all of that. We do a lot of essays. It's college level work. But we also do a lot of character development, because I think what you'll find in Oakland is a city that has bad representation, not bad people but people who don't know how to represent themselves, just walking around and doing whatever and acting ignorant. If you're in the Oakland public schools, particularly if you're a minority, people have a certain view of us, they think right off the bat that we're hella dumb. So you need to represent yourself well to buck those stereotypes, listening, watching how you speak and who you're speaking to, knowing who you are and what you want. Representation, voice and action, those are principles that are key.

David: TryUMF opens your eyes to things that you do every day and don't really see, and then it lets you know that you have a choice, you know. I think that everything going on in the school starts with the students. After the principal sets the rules, then it's up to the students to follow the rules because the purpose of coming to school is to try to get an education, and hopefully go to college and get a further education. Students need to feel that coming to school is for their betterment, not for their imprisonment. TryUMF makes that point.

Will: When I first came into this TryUMF class, I didn't know about oppression and dehumanization, I didn't know that if you dehumanize somebody, make somebody feel like they're less human, you're actually being less human in yourself. Learning that, it made me less likely to want to do anything hurtful to anybody else. I know I want to feel like I'm more human, and so why not give that to other people? This leadership program shows you that everything you do has a consequence, it shows you the things behind your eyes that you don't see.

Ambrose: One of our first assignments in TryUMF class, we had to go around the school using different words to express ourselves, uplifting words to talk to people in different ways and just see how they reacted to it. Like instead of saying the "b—" word, you call somebody beautiful, you use all uplifting words instead of words that put people down. The strange thing is a lot of people reacted like you were weird, they didn't accept it 'cause it's something they're just not used to hearing. You can see how badly oppressed people are when they get a compliment and just don't accept it. These are the kinds of important things TryUMF opens your eyes to.

On challenging low expectations

Danesia: I didn't used to come to class, my GPA was like a 0.32 when I first came to Tech, and as many arguments as me and Darrick's had in this exact room as we're sitting in now, him cussing and yelling and we going back and forth, I finally did it, finally got my grades up. I represent myself now by trying to go to college, bringing my GPA up, going to summer school, making up the credits.

One of the things I've learned is how to step up. I mean, if you see your friends doing some stupid stuff that you yourself used to do, you gotta be an example for them and say, Come on let's go to class, stop cutting, stop doing this, stop doing that! If they still don't want to go to class, you be sure to go to class yourself, to move yourself forward.

Veronica: Danesia said it, you can't force anybody to do what they don't want to do, to step up. But for myself, I don't want to just sit back and let things happen. I want to be a part of it, 'cause I want to change the future for not only myself, but my family. I don't want my niece and my nephew to struggle. UC Berkeley had only 50 applicants from Oakland schools, they accepted 17, and only three out of Oakland Tech, I read that on the Internet. Why?

David: One of the things you hear a lot around here, from some of the teachers, is that college isn't for you. In the school I went to before, I never heard that, but coming to Tech, I see it in the amount of the work, the workload, with teachers not preparing students as well as they should.

Danesia: That's right. Oakland public schools don't expect you to go to college, because you're not supposed to go to college. You were meant not to go to college. You were meant to walk out of school, you were meant to go to the donut shop, you were meant to struggle. We have a donut shop across the street and a lot of people cut to go to the donut shop. You were meant to do those things. At every school, they claim that they don't want you to cut, but at every school you will find an open door. A student cannot do anything about that. The only thing a student can do is choose the right course to take, and stay in class, and get their education.

On making change at the district level

Danesia: Go to the district and make a change, you say. It's possible in Oakland, but it's the whole fact that youth gotta be prepared to take the responsibility of making that change. It's not easy to make a change. You gotta stick to it. And oftentimes, as youth, we feel that we can't do it, so we just give up.

...Facts, you need facts. You need information. You need to be educated on what [the administration is] doing wrong, because you can't just go up to somebody and not know what you're talking about. You need to be educated on what they say they're doing and what students say they're doing. You gotta keep going to meetings and not let anybody run over you. You gotta be willing to study the information, you gotta be willing to survey, you gotta be willing to ask people about it. You gotta understand.

On making change at Oakland Tech

Luke: What TryUMF offers is how students can change the vibe of a school and how it operates. A lot of times students are scared to stand out and do something different or positive because there is a lot of antagonizing. In Oakland schools there is a lot of ignorant people who don't want to see anything positive—students that are satisfied with the status quo and come to school to kick it and not really to learn—and when certain individuals try to do something positive to change that, they get shot down by their fellow students. TryUMF provides a forum for us to speak what we want to and not be shot down by each other. We're sort of a family, we're a whole program. Every morning we do "formation" in front of the school. We say the TryUMF Anthem, it's kind of an uplifting poem that Darrick wrote. And we all stand in formation and look straight ahead and say it really loud, and everyone that goes by hears us. And having that presence, you know, we'll get chided a little bit, but people respect that because we're together, and it's not just one student saying something

TryUMF Anthem In the midst of dropping GPAs and disrespectful displays, of ignorant melees, signaling the waste of each day, comes a light out of the sky that is I. Brighter than the sun, yet missed by the eye. For this light is not for sight, cause I shine way too bright. Chocolate smiles erupt with my own, and haters hate how much I've grown, cause they know my light represents my home, focus, intense heat and flames, this must be the sign, it's TryUMF time, shine baby shine.

On involving more students in TryUMF

Ambrose: I think it would be a good if we could get more people in a leadership program like this. The problem, though, is that a lot of kids aren't ready to accept the program. They don't come to school to learn, they just come to mess stuff up and play around. So the first thing to do is to start with a group of students that are willing to accept the program, and from that expand—students talk to other students, kind of recruit them. Eventually the TryUMF program will get bigger and our school will be stronger because of the program. But it's not a thing where you can just throw a whole bunch of students in and expect that they'll all accept it and the school will be better within the next two or three years. I think it's a process that will take maybe ten, fifteen years.

Luke: That's a tough issue, what you do with the kids that cause a lot of disruptions. It sounds great, but you just can't save everybody. When you try to save a few people at the expense of everyone, that's when you'll run into trouble, because there's certain individuals who will always cause this vibe of negativity that will poison a lot of the other kids who are open. Like if you made everyone take a leadership class, it's a good idea because there's a lot of skills people should learn. But not everyone is meant to be a leader. There's people at the school that I would not want to follow, no matter what they learned. Yeah, it's difficult. You don't want to just throw kids out, you don't want to say, You're not good enough so therefore you don't have the chance to have the same education as everyone else. But you can't have those few poison everyone else.

I think there's a difference between writing off an entire minority group or a whole city, and writing off certain individuals. We're not saying that you don't give everyone a chance—you definitely give everyone a chance, and you try to help everybody, but there comes a point where certain individuals just show that they're not going to help themselves or you, that they are taking away from what you're trying to teach other children. So we're not saying beforehand, Oh no you don't look like you'd be right for our program. But if despite the training they are still at a point mentally—and it's not necessarily their fault, it has a lot to do with where and how they were raised—where they just aren't cutting it and they're messing up other kids, that's the point where you write them off. And it's not saying, "Yeah black people are just dumb so they're not going to do it." No, maybe a certain black person, maybe a certain white person, just personally, mentally, they're not ready for the work, or they can't handle it. It's at that point that you say they can't be in a certain program.