Gemma Sampas

Student
Holliston, MA

Gemma Sampas can check off a lot of items on the list of what top high school students accomplish, but as she spoke with us it was evident she’s her own person and introspective about what being an authentic learner really means. She’s articulate about what’s important to create a more inclusive and fair society for those who have no voice. Gemma knows the difference between going to school and learning and she’s found that working on projects that matter to her has kept her passion alive and given her a sense of purpose for learning. Gemma’s no cookie cutter, over-achiever and her stories about learning provide insight into what’s possible when a student has opportunities to deviate from a linear achievement path and  forge their own purposes for learning.  

A Wider World

In a nation like the United States it is essential, if we are to change our education system in sufficiently transformative ways, that the changes improve the lives of all, and that the changes work for those who are born holding the levers of power and not just those seen as, to use the euphemism, “at risk.” In a Boston exurb, in a school district which surely could have rested on its laurels and resisted change, we heard teachers, and students like Gemma Sampas who attends Holliston High School, describe the power of seeing learning in different terms.

Holliston is a picturesque New England town which dates back to the mid-17th century. There is an antique ‘downtown’ surrounded by old salt box houses and long lines of rubble-stone walls. It is a high achieving middle class suburb with pressures to both conform and excel. With success often described as admission to an Ivy League college.

Everyone inside the educational establishment knows that high school students in middle to upper middle class communities such as Holliston are well-coached to nail the perfect transcript, the right extra-curricular activities, the leadership roles that are must dos, and the service projects that create a persona of deep empathy and care through local to global projects. An admissions officer for a highly competitive university once told me (Pam) when I was superintendent that he was tired of talking with well-coached juniors and seniors whose curiosity about the world, passion for learning, and creative urges have been stamped out by the cookie cutter, over-achiever mindset that’s been so well cultivated over the last few decades. When we first sat down to chat with Gemma Sampas we thought we were about to engage with one of those students. Instead, we found ourselves hearing stories from a master teen storyteller whose fresh perspectives on what’s possible as a teen learner come directly from her own experiences.

Experiencing Learning from an Irish Point of View

Nothing makes a person more aware of how different one’s culture is from the world than a trip abroad, especially if schooling is part of the experience. When Gemma Sampas attended a summer young writer’s workshop in Dublin, Ireland she had no idea she would be the only American in a group of Irish teenagers. Ireland, of course, has a reputation of producing poets and novelists and Gemma felt it was a good place for her to hone her own talents as a writer. After a few days attending classes and informal writing groups, Gemma realized she was not in Massachusetts anymore. This was not school, even summer school programming, as most American teens know it. The sense of time, purpose, and focus felt different to her. She noticed that her Irish peers worked differently on their writing than she did. Through a kind of appreciative inquiry, Gemma discovered the oral traditions that are embedded in how the Irish learn together. She came to cherish that summer writing experience and felt it opened her to a way of bringing collaborative conversation into her work as an author and filmmaker.     

“I was the only American in the course and when I first got there I was really astounded by their ability to speak so eloquently orally and at length,” says Gemma Sampas of a summer writing program she attended at Ireland’s Trinity College, “and they really cherish their discussions. I mean [we] have discussions in American high schools but it's different and so I was just really astounded by that and their ability to translate that into their writing.” Gemma, a senior at Holliston High School in Massachusetts - about halfway between Boston and Providence - knows how lucky she is to have, at her age, experienced the way other cultures learn, and how other cultures prioritize. “I found that the work ethic that I had wasn't exactly similar to theirs. I found myself working like a dog for like four hours straight and trying to do all the essays whereas they kind of would just focus on the quality of their work and pace themselves.”

PBL as Transformational Experience

Gemma and her classmates are lucky to be in a high school that both offers and welcomes more than one path to success, and where alternative paths are celebrated. She is a school leader with roles including Opinion Page Editor of the school newspaper, but when she describes her deep learning it comes from those experiences in Ireland and her passionate work as a documentary filmmaker who has focused on the wrongfully convicted. “The sophomores and juniors in my class did a documentary on wrongful conviction. We actually were able to interview people who have been exonerated [after] spending time in prison for crimes they didn't commit. I got to interview a man named who actually served six years in prison for something for which he was wrongfully convicted.”

Through that project, Gemma learned that life can be really unfair, especially to those disadvantaged in a society where the color of skin or economic status can work against you in the judicial system. She also learned that journalism, whether researching to write articles or make documentary films, can help teens such as her develop a deep understanding of how people’s lives can be destroyed by a system designed to help keep people safe. It was evident when she described her interview with a man wrongly convicted of a crime telling her how his life was changed forever. Hearing his experience changed her forever, too. 

“This person was broken by a system that's broken itself and that is calling desperately for reform. You know nothing compares to sitting down and seeing a living and breathing person. We watched so many documentaries about wrongful conviction but to be able to sit down with someone who had actually been through it… allowed me a chance to learn how to talk to someone who's still shell-shocked and how to talk to someone who's still clearly going through a lot and clearly trying to like survive again in the community … he expressed how he was still barely like surviving and trying to  find a job. It was very eye-opening and it taught me a lot of empathy and a lot of compassion.”  

This kind of project brings a realism to social-emotional learning (SEL) that programs often purchased to implement SEL can never create in the classroom. When teachers and administrators take risks to support this kind of project work it sets up a different kind of learning that impacts far more than academic outcomes. Such learning also impacts the way teens view, understand and process the world that exists outside the walls of schools. Rather than limiting learning to that which is specified in a school’s curriculum or a state’s standards, projects such as those Gemma describes integrate learning across community, a learner’s interests, and competencies that will stand a student in good stead for a lifetime.

School as a Different Kind of Preparation

Though Gemma’s school is a comprehensive high school, the school administration and staff work to make the environment one where students and teachers are able to design for a learning that makes learning both as world-wide as needed and as much of a small community as possible. Walking the school, we noticed that it’s ok for teens to work together at tall cafe tables in front of a glass wall facing into a courtyard or sit on the floor in hallways engaged in conversation. Student artwork interfaces with murals on old lockers. Kids are actively building a tiny house in the back of the school. Whether engaged on the gym climbing wall or using personal cell phones to support a science lab activity, the school community seems free and open for teens to work in the way they need as they find their way to adulthood. Gemma exemplifies the feel of the community, one that allows her voice to be amplified as a writer, a leader, a champion of social justice even though she sees herself in this way: 

“I consider myself an introvert. At heart I am a 100% introvert and very shy and I love my alone time but being a leader is something that I don't necessarily feel is the same as being social.”

Writing Is My Passion

Gemma prizes her chance to choose a more “Irish” path where getting everything she’s supposed to get done takes a back seat to doing great work on the things that matter to her. “I have things to do during my study blocks instead of just forcing myself to work on homework. I'm always running around working on work I love which I never thought I would do in my high school career.” 

“Writing is where my passion was starting out in high school, but as the years have progressed I've just become totally infatuated with all forms of media, and now I'm interested in pursuing a career in some sort of journalism.” Gemma says. “My work is definitely demanding but I would much rather do all those things than preoccupy myself with my homework or studying. It's actually less stressful now to have all those activities because there's something else I can look forward to when I go to school every day.” 

Recently, Gemma’s been interested in making political topics more accessible through her Op Ed pieces, for example engaging peers as voters. She considers herself to be fortunate to live in a community where her passion for media has been encouraged and supported. She can see herself pursuing a career in journalism where her talent for researching and interviewing can bring alive stories or information that can help educate the public - who right now are her peers. 

“I really like to write news but I've also written opinions and my opinion pieces usually have to deal with politics and getting young students involved in politics. One of my favorite articles that I've written was an opinion piece about talking politics in the classroom because it only makes sense that if we're going to be graduating at the voting age that we have some sort of background knowledge and we can use that to vote. “

Gemma’s worldview shifted when she attended the writer’s workshop in Ireland. She became more tuned into using time differently as a learner. Her worldview also changed when she became engaged in the project around wrongful convictions. Without these kinds of experiences, students, especially academically-focused students can drift through classes, acing tests, getting work done on time, answering questions with the right answers, and doing their competitive best to build the resumes they think all admission officers want. Gemma’s determination to live a balanced life, use her writing to bring important stories and information to the public, and find her stride as a leader shows what’s possible when engagement happens naturally in a learning culture. The work of teachers in her school to create project-driven pathways to learning makes sense to Gemma: 

“I think that doing projects is a way to really learn about the subject that I'm working on and also work with other people. We can challenge each other and  work together on projects. I think that it's harder for some classes but I think there's definitely ways to make project-based learning work. I think that personally I know that when it's a project or even like an activity not just like a worksheet that we're passing in for five points, there's less stress and I leave that classroom feeling like I've absorbed the information a lot better. That's my experience.”

Her experience makes sense to us, too.