Columbus Alternative High School, or CAHS, and Upper Arlington High School are about 15 minutes apart by car, but the students’ experiences – and their perceptions of each other – can be considered worlds apart.
To close the gap, students from both schools’ International Baccalaureate anthropology classes recently swapped places and spent two days learning about each other, breaking down stereotypes and making new friends.
On the second day of the two-day experience, Upper Arlington senior Jack Lehman led a few of his classmates and several students from CAHS on a tour of Upper Arlington High School’s sparkling, state-of-the-art auditorium. He pointed to the covered pit orchestra and explained that students usually play for the school's musicals.
CAHS junior Asha Brill asked a question, "So would you say that the people who participate in the play feel like they are their own group, or that it combines a lot of people from different groups?"
"It's an experience that brings people that aren't normally interacting with each other together," Upper Arlington senior Chris Oswald answered.
The tour continued. Upper Arlington’s massive new school building opened in the fall of 2021. Walking down the school’s main corridor with its vaulted ceilings and natural light feels a little like being in an airport.
Oswald said he was excited to show the CAHS students Upper Arlington’s variety of classes, including a Star Wars language arts class, and the school's unique educational spaces.
“We have a metal shop, we have a wood shop, jewelry, so just the fun things that we get to do," Oswald said.
The school also has a pool, sound-proof practice rooms for musicians and a weight room that rivals what you'd find at a college.
“I've made friends here today and it's just been It's so wonderful because it really is able to give me another perspective."CAHS junior student Isabel Escobar
It’s a far cry from Columbus Alternative’s character-filled hundred-year-old building in North Linden, with wooden classroom floors and narrow hallways filled with student art, projects and colorful murals.
But while understanding the differences between resources and physical spaces was part of the agenda, the goal of the exchange was to find what students have in common.
“I'm hoping that the students realize that they're all teenagers," said CAHS IB anthropology teacher Emma Baker. "A lot of times there's a lot of blame placed, like they have something that I don't, or you know, they have this amazing opportunity, why don't I have it? And so we're sort of trying to get rid of all of the external stuff and get really internal and say we all deal with the same things as teenagers."
Baker said every building has a culture, and that’s where this anthropology lesson started. Students learned about the culture of their own buildings, then spent the year writing to students at the other school before finally meeting.
“I really love watching the way the students kind of get over their awkwardness fairly quickly and start talking to each other," said Upper Arlington language arts teacher Sean Martin, who team-teaches anthropology with another teacher.
Martin brought anthropology students to CAHS, where they listened to a Ted-talk, went on mural scavenger hunts and conducted oral history interviews.
“The students here are very welcoming and very proud of their school, and I think our students are maybe somewhat envious of that," Martin said. "Our school is this brand new, very shiny, clean, office building-looking thing. So the kids are, I think, kind of remembering what their elementary schools and middle schools look like in terms of the hominess of them."
CAHS junior Isabel Escobar said that in talking with the students from Upper Arlington, she realized how fortunate she was to attend a diverse school.
"I didn't realize how much of a like... blessing that is, and also how much of a creative environment that CAHS really fosters with all the murals painted by students and in classrooms and all that," Escobar said. "You know we were talking about that with other students from UA, and they said that they didn't really have any of that there."
Before Escobar visited Upper Arlington, she said she was excited to see the school and experience it from the UA students' perspectives. She wanted to challenge her ingrained assumptions about the wealthy school district, and hoped the UA students were also breaking down their preconceived ideas about CAHS and urban Columbus City Schools.
“I've made friends here today, and it's just been so wonderful, because it really is able to give me another perspective," Escobar said.
“I'm hoping that the students realize that they're all teenagers."CAHS anthropology teacher Emma Baker
Baker said it's more important than ever for students to understand their commonalities are greater than their differences.
"There's more power in coming together than there is being apart," Baker said.
Columbus Alternative and Upper Arlington are the only high schools in Ohio with IB anthropology classes, which made them perfect for an exchange. The two schools aren’t the only ones swapping students, however.
Erase the Space helped bring CAHS and UA together and provided lunches. The central Ohio-based organization does classroom exchanges for elementary, middle and high school students. To date, the organization has facilitated more than 40 classroom exchanges involving more than 2,000 students, according to the group's website.
It's all in the name of creating discussion and bridging perceived divisions.
“It don't matter if it's CCS, OCC, whatever school it is, we're all students, we are all humans," said CAHS junior Rick Sarpong. "The building doesn't define how the students are.”
