Ali Academy is working with companies in our community to have “Real Work Days”, which is not a traditional career day where students are TOLD what the company does. Instead it is a hands on / interactive experience for the students. Real Work Days were created to provide opportunities for scholars to immerse themselves in social justice and/or career exploration work, gain real skills, apply what they have been learning in school in real ways, and gain inspiration to strive for greatness.
Recently, 1904labs hosted 18 Ali Academy scholars participating in Real Work Days summer camp. During their visit, students ages 9 through 16 took part in 2 separate interactive “Real Work” sessions.
Session 1 provided tips and tricks on building a slide deck that students were able to execute in real time. Taking these newly learned skills, they then broke out into small groups to solve a change management problem for a fictional company. The team then worked together building slides and finished the first session by presenting their deck and solution to the other teams.
Following a tour of CIC@CET Co-working space, the second session focused on helping the Ali Academy scholars build their own smartphone app. 1904labs volunteers used an app builder program that teaches the fundamentals of software design and development techniques in easy to follow drag and drop coding for app creation. By the end of session 2, students had created their own interactive app!
“It really gave the kids a memorable experience and one that could one day turn into a livelihood. By the time our scholars graduate high school I imagine many of them will be working immediately at places like CIC.“ - Chester Asher, Ali Academy Founder
“In only one day, the Ali Academy Scholars learned new skills that can be applied to their current studies as well as their future career. Because the students were eager and engaged, they left at the end of the day with new problem solving skills, learned how to communicate in a team environment, present in front of a group of peers, and used their creativity to build a mobile app, all things we do in a Real Work Day at 1904labs!” - Julie Olivarri, 1904labs Director Employee Experience and Community Relations
Ali Academy is a K-12 social justice school that empowers scholars to achieve academic, professional, personal, and communal greatness by focusing on relevance, rigor, and righteousness. Relevant work is work that is related to social justice and economic empowerment. Rigorous work is work that helps them to read deeply and critically and write clearly and convincingly. Righteous work is work that helps scholars internalize our core values and be better people. We need kids to realize their greatness to improve our world. They will cure cancer, eliminate poverty, and build the starship Enterprise. We define social justice as helping to make the world a better place. Thank you for helping bring about positive change and helping children realize that greatness is within reach.
Read more about our work with the community and how you can take part!
