East Rock | Arts & Culture | New Haven Public Schools | Arts & Anti-racism | New Haven Academy
Kobe Ransome during his presentation. Grayce Howe Photos.
Act out of love. Know your worth. Think critically. Carry your beliefs and passions with you, and let them lead the way in how you show love to yourself, and those close to you.
New Haven Academy seniors Kobe Ransome and Alec Pedersen gave that advice during their Senior Action Project (SAP) presentations last week, speaking to students, staff and parents in the school’s second-floor library. Speaking on mental health and the separation of church and state respectively, Ransome and Pedersen said that they hoped their audiences would leave with a sense of their own worth, and learn to better love themselves and others.
“Thinking critically involves getting right down to the roots of things,” Pedersen said, referencing the school’s motto to “Think Critically, Be Responsible, and Get Involved.”
Launched in the 2006-07 school year, the SAP is a year-long exhibition that all students in the senior class must complete before graduation. This year, students have focused on everything from environmental justice to Black Maternal Health. Last Wednesday, Ransome spoke on “How Beauty Standards Affect Mental Health,” followed by Pedersen’s reflection on “The Separation of Church and State” Friday afternoon.
Part of New Haven Academy’s college and career incentive-based curriculum, the SAP is a final reflection of students' high school careers, preparing them for what is to come after high school. Students start at the beginning of the year by picking a topic they are passionate about and spend time in and outside of school thoroughly researching those topics.
They then pinpoint an issue within that topic and develop a plan to make a change. The “action” part of the SAP takes place when students carry out an event or physical display on how to solve their issue and present it to the community.
Wednesday, students made their way to the middle of the library, where a series of rectangular tables around the whiteboard created their own designated area. Standing at the whiteboard, Ransome asked his audience to define what beauty standards are and explain what that means to them personally.
He then provided his participants with statistics that have informed his project. Currently, 46 percent of teenage girls report that their body image causes them stress, Ransome said. Twenty-five percent of teenage boys report that they tend to compare their height and weight to those of their peers. As he spoke, he handed out journals to each participant and primed the group for a prompt.
“I just want them to be able to journal,” Ransome said during the workshop. “Journaling is something that isn’t taken seriously because a lot of people don’t like to write … you can journal in your phone and in your notes app but I think it’s better to write it down and actually know because when you’re on your phone you get distracted by other things.”
He said that it seems as though young people in this generation generally have a hard time expressing their honest emotions. When all of those emotions build up, it can lead to outbursts that many people define as childish. In reality, a person may just have a lot of built-up emotion and lack the skill to express it properly.
He practices what he preaches: Ransome said that journaling is a strategy that he uses to improve his own mental health. When he notices he’s having a hard time, the first thing he does to help himself is journal because it helps him free his mind. “You have to want help in order to start feeling better,” he said.
Around the library, pens and pencils met notebook paper with passion as students found themselves letting go of the frustrations of the school day and any emotional tension they had been holding in. Many said they felt appreciative and excited when Ransom
told them that the notebooks were theirs to keep, and that he hoped they would continue journaling in their own time.
The second half of the workshop involved self-love, and how a strong understanding of love for yourself can apply to how you treat others. Ransome began passing out colored construction paper and markers and told the participants they would now write love notes to themselves and friends around the room.
“Writing a love note to yourself can promote self-acceptance, self-appreciation, all the more which can build a healthier mindset towards yourself which can be projected onto others in a positive way,” he said. “Which is why it’s important to love yourself first. It also encourages people to treat themselves with kindness, as we can easily forget to do that.”
Laughter and conversation erupted around the room as participants found joy and comfort in the kind remarks they received from one another, and also the kind things they had to say about themselves. As someone who has struggled with self-love in the past, Ransome really wanted to help students feel good about themselves and leave with a sense of how valuable their own self-worth is.
It was important to Ransome that participants left his workshop with an understanding of their self-worth and an understanding of their mind, he said. Ultimately, it came from a place of communal love.
That focus on love was also there on Friday, as Pedersen ended the school week with a jazz performance using blues music to express the meaning behind the philosophical concept of the separation of church and state. He spoke to the audience about why the separation of church and state is valid to democracy, encouraging his audience to practice their right to vote. Alongside him were members of the ECA-based jazz band, The Audubon Collective.
Pedersen began his performance by describing the separation of church and state to the audience on an individual level. “The separation of church and state validates our experiences,” Pedersen said. “The experiences that we have with our minds and with our hearts because religion, and belief, and faith, spirituality is all in the heart and our country says that you can believe in what you want.”
Continuing his point, Pedersen referenced the Constitution, which he fondly referred to as the “National Poetry.” He pulled up an image of the men who wrote the Constitution, then quickly changed the image on the screen to a jazz concert, comparing the interactions in the images to each other, explaining that blues music and democracy are very much alike.
Within moments, the library was filled with blues music as “Sonnymoon For Two” by Sonny Rollins rang throughout the room. With Israel Ortiz on bass, Isaiah Cross on piano, Angel Mendoza on guitar, Dontae James on saxophone, and Pedersen on drums, the musicians worked as storytellers and the crowd became entranced by their musical language.
The entire musical performance included jazz standards “Sonnymoon For Two” by Sonny Rollins, “Someday My Prince Will Come” by Larry Morey and Frank Churchill, “Just The Two of Us” by Grover Washington Jr., “There Is No Greater Love” by Isham Jones, and “Sandu” by Clifford Browns.
“Music can unite people,” Pedersen said. He pointed to the role music played in Freedom Summer, a grassroots campaign in Mississippi in June of 1964 that attempted to get as many Black residents of Mississippi registered to vote as possible.
“You can feel meaning in music that you can’t necessarily feel when someone’s just talking at you, but with music you can all get on the same page and you’re all feeling the same thing through that music,” he added.
Between each song, Pedersen reiterated his thesis—that within a democracy are everyone’s own beliefs and experiences, and much like “swing,” democracy moves forward.
“Jazz and democracy are all about experience,” said Pedersen. He explained that democracy and blues music alike—at least in their ideal form—respect the authority of experiences. In turn, “democracy believes in us to govern ourselves.”
Pedersen concluded that this is why it is so important that everyone takes advantage of their right to register to vote, especially young people who will be turning 18 before the presidential election in November. Pedersen told his audience that their vote is only theirs, and no one in America today can take their vote from them.
“I just hope that they’ll leave with some love, and remembering what they felt during the music,” Pedersen said afterward. “I hope they’ll remember to respect themselves, respect what’s inside you, respect what you feel.”
Grayce Howe is the Arts Paper's 2024 New Haven Academy intern. The New Haven Academy internship is a program for NHA juniors that pairs them with a professional in a field that is interesting to them. From now through May 24, look out for her byline!