For my final Gordon Career Center event, I chose to attend an information session about a summer internship with MeshEd Collective. Again, prior to this event, I had never heard of MeshEd, so I was excited to see what this group did and what this opportunity would be like.
I learned that MeshEd Collective is a non-profit organization that builds online project-based learning content and digital portfolio tools for middle school, high school, and early college students. They call the courses they teach “action labs,” and typically they are hired through a school (they are based in Brooklyn) as an after school program option for students. These action labs provide hands-on learning experiences in areas that kids are actually excited to learn about (kids get to pick what action lab to take), like podcast production or climate justice.
One thing I loved about MeshEd is that they specifically focus on making learning these skills approachable and accessible for students of all backgrounds, especially those of marginalized groups. They do a lot of work to make sure their curriculum and staff are anti-racist in order to combat the education gap, thus in turn combatting the school-to-prison pipeline and wealth disparities down the road. They also focus a lot on constantly adapting their curriculum to fit the learning styles of students of all learning styles. As someone with ADHD who has struggled in the classroom before due to my differences in learning styles, this is incredibly exciting to hear.
Though I do not think I will be applying to this summer internship (simply because I think I’ll be staying on campus instead to do summer research with the College of Integrative Sciences), it was really great to hear about the awesome work this group is doing. While our current education system is still pretty flawed, it is encouraging and hope-instilling that there are groups out there, like MeshEd, working to make education accessible–and fun–for all.
