Destiny Cooper and Anna West began Humanities Amped in 2014 with one class of 25 students at McKinley Senior High School. Today, we amplify the voice, civic engagement, and human connections of youth in over 50 classrooms. In 2019, Forward Arts became part of Humanities Amped in order to raise the voices of Baton Rouge youth through expanded literary arts programming.
Our Investment
We amplify learning for over 1,000 students in 54 classrooms at three under-resourced, high-poverty public schools. Each Humanities Amped classroom is infused with resources (valuing $5,000+ per classroom) in the form of:
Amplified People PowerResident Support Teachers spend 100 hours co-teaching and supporting engagement every week in EBRPSS classrooms, volunteer mentors collaborate with youth on research and action projects, and Brothers Empowered 2 Teach fellows assist in classrooms
youth ConferencesOur fall and spring conferences highlight the socially engaged art, scholarship, and leadership of people throughout our community. At the fall conference, students meet and enter into dialogue with change-makers focused on issues of importance to Baton Rouge communities. At the spring conference, students present their critical research and action projects to an audience of peers and adults.
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Amplified Classrooms CurriculumA collaborative resource with hands on approaches for implementing socially engaged research & youth development in classroom settings
Instructional Coaching & Teacher Learning CommunityLed by an EBRPSS Humanities Amped Instructional Leader, embedded coaching for teachers and an ongoing community that centers joyful and meaningful learning
Forward Arts Poetry ResidenciesAn accomplished poetry educator in residence works with teachers to design and implement 10-workshop residencies that amplify the love of literacy using poetry and performance as vehicles for student voice in ELA classrooms.
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“Humanities Amped reminds us that we have a voice and that we can make a change. We believe that students should have a voice … that school doesn't have to be miserable.”
- Humanities Amped Student
Our outcomes
More Likely to GraduateHumanities Amped students in traditional classes are 22% more likely than their peers to graduate. In 2019, 89% of students enrolled in Humanities Amped graduated on time compared to the 67% graduation rate of their peers.
100% of Humanities Amped seniors in English Learner classes graduated on time in 2018 and 2019, which is impressively 33% higher than the graduation rate for English speakers. |
More Likely to Achieve Academically21.4% more Humanities Amped 11th graders passed the 2018 English III EOC compared to their peers.
11th grader English Learners in Humanities Amped scored 10 points higher than the district average in writing on the English Language Proficiency Test (ELPT), the state test used to measure growth in the sub categories of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. One in every three English Learners in Humanities Amped in 2018-2019 was on the school honor roll. |
More Likely to be Heard and Supported
Teacher effectiveness matters. Five out of six Humanities Amped teachers were rated “highly effective” by the Compass Evaluation System in 2018. One was a finalist for EBRPSS Teacher of the Year.
Community volunteers gave 2,017 hours supporting civic-engagement research and action projects in 2018-2019, and LSU donated over 4,000 hours of graduate student assistantship time to support Humanities Amped activities.
In 2018, Humanities Amped students took part in 4 local student conferences and participated in 3 national conferences, including United We Dream in Miami and the Harvard Graduate School of Education Arts-in-Education Conference.
Community volunteers gave 2,017 hours supporting civic-engagement research and action projects in 2018-2019, and LSU donated over 4,000 hours of graduate student assistantship time to support Humanities Amped activities.
In 2018, Humanities Amped students took part in 4 local student conferences and participated in 3 national conferences, including United We Dream in Miami and the Harvard Graduate School of Education Arts-in-Education Conference.
“I FEEL LIKE THIS IS ONE OF THE FEW CLASSES THAT MAKES ME FEEL READY FOR COLLEGE.”
- Humanities Amped Student
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“WHEN MY GRADES STARTED TO LOWER, TEACHERS NOTICED. THEY ASKED ME WHAT WAS HAPPENING. I DID NOT WANT TO TALK TO ANYONE BECAUSE I FELT THEY WOULD JUDGE ME. BUT THEY TALKED TO ME AND LISTENED. I REALIZED TEACHERS DO NOT JUST TEACH, THEY ALSO LISTEN WHEN WE HAVE PROBLEMS.”
- Humanities Amped Student
Why It Matters
Gloria Ladson-Billings (2014) writes, “the academic death of students is made evident in the disengagement, academic failure, dropout, suspension, and expulsion that have become an all too familiar part of schooling in urban schools…” (p. 77). School dropout rates are 30% and higher in many schools serving low income students of color. In Louisiana, a state that ranks 50th for overall youth well-being (United Health Foundation, 2019), opportunities to be connected in schools are indeed a matter of life and death for many young people.
At Humanities Amped, we believe that young people deserve better, and doing better begins with changing the way students are perceived, not as problems to be solved, but as problem-solvers. We say no thank you to the narrow “drill and kill” approaches to teaching and learning that characterize so much of so-called school reform, and instead highlight the role of community, culture, and relationships.
At Humanities Amped, we believe that young people deserve better, and doing better begins with changing the way students are perceived, not as problems to be solved, but as problem-solvers. We say no thank you to the narrow “drill and kill” approaches to teaching and learning that characterize so much of so-called school reform, and instead highlight the role of community, culture, and relationships.
