Field Trips

On Friday, February 2, 2024, 60 ninth grade students from Vertex Partnership Academies had the extraordinary opportunity to travel to the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. to spend nearly two hours in an exclusive conversation with Clarence Thomas, the longest serving associate justice. The subject of the conversation was two Sunday evening lectures that were given by Booker T. Washington, to his students at Tuskegee, the enduring institution he founded in 1881 to train teachers. 

More than a century ago, Washington gave the first of the lectures Have You Done Your Best, at the midpoint of the school year. He asked his students to carefully assess the effort they had put in thus far into their school work: “Above all, have you been really true to your parents and to your best selves in growing in strength of character, in strength of purpose, in being downright honest?”

In The Two Sides of Life, Washington exhorts his students to take responsibility to lead a life anchored primarily in optimism and resilience, and not pessimism nor dwelling in the “dark side“ of life: “To do the most that lies in you, you must go with a heart and head full of hope and faith in the world, believing that there is work for you to do, believing that you are the person to accomplish that work, and the one who is going to accomplish it.”

The ensuing discussion between Justice Thomas and the fourteen- and fifteen-year-old students was a study in wisdom meeting aspiration. Like Washington to his Tuskegee charges, Justice Thomas encouraged these Vertex students to reject the idea of victimhood, embrace personal agency and take care of their daily business - like making your bed, studying and finishing homework (at least two hours!) - today and every day.

It was a lesson for the ages - connecting two black male icons from past history and present day to share universal messages that students of any race can use to pursue a meaningful life. Yet we did not choose the timing of this experience for our students because the 29 days of February in 2024 have been officially designated by the US government as Black History Month. 

That would trivialize the accomplishments of two exceptional individuals who are worthy of reverence and study, regardless of their race. Booker T. Washington, born enslaved, is also known for empowering poor black communities throughout the American South to build nearly 5,000 Rosenwald schools to provide a high-quality education to black children who were learning in inferior circumstances. We would not compartmentalize Washington’s legacy by siloing the teaching of his achievements to an arbitrary month, in the same way we would not limit reading Shakespeare to only October. 

It is worthwhile to note that Carter G. Woodson, known as “the father of Black history,” introduced the first Negro History Week in February 1926. What many do not know is that Woodson chose February because it was the month in which both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were born. He inextricably and forever linked the efforts of a black abolitionist and a white president, who worked together to lift our nation “from the depths of slavery to the heights of liberty and manhood.”

Throughout the school year at Vertex, we will study important individuals and events that have contributed to American and global history - such as Washington’s Rosenwald Schools and the ironic role the Brown versus Board of Education decision played in shutting down these schools. That’s just one of the several curriculum lessons we will use from the (Bob) Woodson Center. The African-American experience, like any other integral peoples or series of occurrences, cannot be relegated to a disjointed time period, separate and apart from the year-long course of study of the broader American story. 

The point is that interpreting history through the narrow lens of colorized race does a disservice to everything we as educators must teach our children about the human race and the universality of the human condition.

At Vertex Partnership Academies, the education is organized around the four cardinal virtues of Courage, Justice, Temperance and Wisdom. The “I Statement” for Justice, which you know our students memorize is “I uphold our common humanity and honor the inherent dignity of each individual.”

Regardless of what the outside world may be communicating, each student must know that his or her most salient characteristic is not a singular feature like race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, country of origin, or any other sub-identity group attribute. Nor is his or her individual worth - their inherent dignity - dependent on these monolithic identities. Such reductionist views are exactly what we want young people to avoid adopting, especially given they were what led to many of the human atrocities and discrimination we have seen throughout history and present day. 

Tellingly, Carter G. Woodson hoped that the “time would come when Negro History Week would be unnecessary” and that people would “willingly recognize the contributions of black Americans as a legitimate and integral part of the history of this country.” 

It was fitting that our students ended the session with Justice Thomas by standing in unison, reciting the poem Invictus, thanking “whatever gods may be, for my unconquerable soul.”

And so it is for a country whose unconquerable soul commands us to work towards a more perfect union, and for whose national motto is “e pluribus unum.” Out of many, one. Not for one month, not once a year, but for all time.

Paintings and sculptures were not created to be seen through an iPhone or laptop. A student benefits strongest from seeing great artworks in the flesh. Thankfully, Vertex is located in one of the art capitals of the world, and in our first year of existence, students had the opportunity to experience seeing great artworks in person at extraordinary art institutions. 

Pictured above is a class of Vertex art students who visited the New York Studio School to see an exhibition of paintings by the late painter and art professor, Leland Bell. Students had been studying fundamentals of color theory, mark-making in various media, and abstract design. They had been taught that in art they are constructing pictures--building imagined worlds of paint, not merely copying or rendering realistic imagery. At the same time, students would soon begin learning to draw from observation--learning how to translate their perceptions of the three-dimensional world onto a flat surface. Leland Bell's inspiring work served as the perfect paintings to reveal the significance and unbreakable bond of abstract and representational painting. More about the exhibit students visited can be found here.

As the end of the 2022-23 school year approached, the top ten highest achieving art students were chosen for a special elective course that would visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the last class period of the last six Fridays of the school year. Students were able to see firsthand many of the paintings they had studied over the course of the school year and explore the fantastic collection of the Met on their own. These trips served as a fun, enlightening, and inspiring way to end each week as the school year came to a close. 

Students at Vertex Partnership Academies have had multiple field trips to the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. As the undergraduate college of our country’s naval service, the Naval Academy prepares young men and women to become professional officers of competence, character, and compassion in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.  

In February 2024, they attended the USNA High School Girls Space Day & Astronaut Convocation. Sponsored by the Naval Academy Foundation, 25 Vertex female students were part of a group of more than fifty high school girls from across the country that attended this annual event which included Rocketry, Orbital Mechanics, Astronomy, and a Planetarium Show. The day culminated with dinner with the midshipmen college students, and attendance at the annual Astronaut Convocation, and a Meet and Greet with the Astronauts. The event was a great opportunity to introduce our young Vertex women to the many opportunities in aerospace engineering and astronautics. 

In March 2024, more Vertex students attended an exciting STEM Day! They had a wonderful time exploring electromagnetism and sound as the students built paper speakers, and learned principles of flight and ground effect as they built and competed to launch paper skimmers.

Our students even recited the poem Invictus with the USNA cadets.

On March 2, 23 female Vertex students woke up at 4 AM to make the bus to attend the Space Day and Astronaut Convocation all day event for high school girls at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. Over the course of the visit, the young women toured the campus, engaged in lessons on Robotics, Flight Dynamics, conducted a Planetarium tour, used the Space Simulation tool used by NASA astronauts, and attended the Astronaut Convocation to learn about the future of spaceflight and exploration.

After one of the visits, Sarah Durkin, Associate Director of STEM Center for Education and Outreach for the United States Naval Academy wrote:

"Thank you for taking the trip to Annapolis for the Space Day & Astronaut Convocation. We were impressed with the Vertex Academies students and hope it was a meaningful experience for them. We'd love to continue this partnership and support your incredible school."

In one self-reflection that each of the students completed, Aleesha wrote:

"The experience was truly eye-opening. It is like a foreign new world full of new information and a different form and way of learning and engagement. Being selected for this opportunity fills me with much gratitude and truly taught me so much. They had engaging activities for us all from the planetarium, satellite work with ISS, robotics, and a convention with Astronauts Kayla and Michael. I learned new things corresponding to S.T.E.M and experiences that open your eyes to what life is like for Students and Servers at the Naval Academy. It impacts my overall experience as a Vertex student because it has helped me look forward toward my future and the future experiences I will also be able to have."