Today we’d like to introduce you to Christine Sylvain.
Christine, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I think it is important to recognize that my story is really the story of all the struggles and celebrations of my family and my ancestors before me. It’s hard to encapsulate what drives a person, but for me, I look at my father’s “Coming to America” story, his grind to career success, economic recessions, job loss, retraining, and subsequent re-climb to the top of his career, as the basis for my story, which I will start briefly in my adolescence. When I was 15, everything I knew about my family, home, and the stability I had enjoyed was tipped upside down. My father lost his job, my brother struggled with a life-threatening illness, my parents disappeared into the mess of it all, and I was left to forge forward hopping from home to home of the families of my soccer team that we more or less barely knew. Following this, we moved to be closer to a hospital that could help my brother, my father stayed unemployed, my mother overworked, and what should have been a time of exploration, flowering, and experimenting for me turned into a black tunnel of survival for myself and my family.
I hated school but I still excelled. I barely applied to college, but I did apply to one and I did earn a 100% Bright Futures Scholarship and so I was able to go. College saved me. It refocused me in an environment surrounded by brilliant people, exposing me to philosophies and critical thinking patterns that I would never again be without. College fed my soul. Later, when I went back to NYU for my Masters, I didn’t know that I would be on a path to a life commitment of trying to change the educational inequities in our communities, but I did know that education had the power to transform people’s lives. That understanding is at the heart of who I am. I became a producer of documentaries and started a family. On a whim, I became a teacher, and for the first time in my most privileged life, I was exposed to students who actively avoided learning. While I could relate with them that high school was truly a drag, I couldn’t relate with not wanting to learn. Now, I know that when a student is not trying, it has nothing to do with his or her intellect; that often they have subconsciously employed the survival tactic of “creative mal-adaption.” That it wasn’t that they couldn’t learn, but that they wouldn’t learn–at least not from people within a system that actively denies and suppresses their identity.
I learned that teaching was love. That problem-students would have to become my favorite. That students in urban, struggling schools had as much potential as those at a northeastern prep school, and that I had the power to fight on the front lines of social justice by just getting them to believe in themselves enough to try, enough to tolerate failure, discomfort, culture shock and so much more all in the name of progress and later success. Later, I worked in a totally different environment. A private one-on-one alternative prep school. I became highly adept at helping wealthy students get the scores and compile the profiles that selective colleges wanted to see. But my gut never ceased reminding me of those other students. The ones who had no experts to help them get ahead. Because I had lived on both sides of the socioeconomic continuum, I knew the demoralization you face when trying to overcome the disadvantages of poverty. After months of this gnawing feeling, I decided I had to try harder. I recognized that my cushy job was directly contributing to the increasing wealth divide in my community — and I could do something about it. And thus, Path to College was born– a long-term targeted embrace of under-resourced, high-potential students. My driving question remains, what would happen if students in communities that regularly offer fewer advanced classes, less qualified teachers, that struggle with the existential stress of past due bills, food and housing insecurity, drugs, violence, trauma and all the rest… what if these students were given an opportunity and support that removed all barriers in front of them?
Currently, I am extremely proud to report that 90% of our first cohort of students have been accepted to University of Florida (as well as all the other Florida Universities they applied to), with 75% earning a Bright Futures Scholarship. At the end of this month, we will hear back from the Ivy League schools, but know of one acceptance to Cornell so far.
One of my favorite aspects of the program is that not only do we help our students, but we empower them to help others. For instance, our students tutor food and housing-insecure elementary school students in the after-school program at Adopt-a-Family, a homelessness prevention organization. Through positive relationship-building and an emphasis on reading comprehension, these buddies are setting the example for the next generation. And more so, for their Give Back project this year, our seniors have designed and are implementing a FSA tutoring program for low-income 3rd graders. We couldn’t be more proud of the reverberating impact our program is having in our students’ lives as well as in the community at large!
Has it been a smooth road?
Starting a nonprofit on the side, while working, and mothering two children is not easy. It takes a daily commitment to ignore that little voice that tells you it’s too hard, that you will fail, that you can’t do it. One of the biggest struggles I have is avoiding the austere “survival mentality” where all I do is focus on what needs to be done, without acknowledging my need for rest, for self-care, and balance. The biggest piece of advice I can give is to live a life of no excuses. If you will accept no excuses from yourself in the pursuit of your dreams, if you can live your life in a way that nurtures yourself, while also staying focused on whatever it is you are meant to do, you will make it happen. Just don’t forget to give back on the way!
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Path to College – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
At the heart of the Path to College mission is a belief that creating connection and community around the goal of raising the educational standards of a community is what struggling schools need to change.
We are, on the most simplistic level, an academic fellowship program that mentors low-income, high-achieving students to help them be more competitive, get better scholarships, and incur less debt when applying to college. The fellowship is a three-year program that, aside from tutoring and mentoring, offers scholarships, and organize avenues for volunteer work in the community. But our vision is much more. We envision a program whose positive effects reverberate exponentially from our fellowship program outwards to create waves of positive change in the lives of our students as well as the community; a society that prioritizes the education of its citizenry; and a community that will benefit from this investment in terms of economic prosperity, innovation, health outcomes, and cultural vitality for years to come.
Until every child knows that they can make it to college, until we start sending the message that college is for everyone, we are tacitly allowing the talent and potential nascent in low-income communities to remain the ‘silver in the mine.” Extremely intelligent low-income students know their family resources make it difficult for them to keep up in the increasingly competitive arena of college admissions. These students regularly resign themselves to more humble dreams and lowered academic ambitions than their more privileged classmates. In fact, students from low-income homes are half as likely to apply to at least one selective school as their high-income peers are.
As an educator, this trend is heartbreaking to me and I am stalwartly committed to changing it. We have the opportunity to secure the bright and successful academic futures of many low-income, academically motivated students in our area. Our mission is to enrich the academic growth and increase the competitiveness of low-income, high-achieving students in college admissions. It is an honor to continue to spearhead this mission, and I know, with continued support, we will change the educational landscape of our struggling communities. We will expand horizons and we will catapult dreams.
What advice would you give to someone at the start of her career?
My advice is to, as quickly as possible, act as if you are already the person you dream of becoming. Wear the clothes, read the books, do to the activities and surround yourself with the people this dream version of yourself would. Sooner than later, you will get there. There is truly nothing holding you back.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.pathtocollege.org
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: insta.com/pathtocollege
- Facebook: facebook.com/pathtocollegeorg
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-sylvain/
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