Student Experts Shine

This past Saturday, UrbanFUTURE held its inaugural UrbanFUTURE Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Trivia Night presented by Wells Fargo Advisors and Walgreens. About 350 were attendance at the Wells Fargo Advisors University Learning Center in downtown St. Louis.

The event was different than any other trivia night in that teams could bid on the services of the Classroom of Experts. The Classroom of Experts was composed of UrbanFUTURE students from Mann Elementary who helped to write the questions for the event and were the center of attention throughout the night. Despite all of the attention and being on stage in front of a large crowd of complete strangers, the students were unfazed and excited.

I had the privilege of driving a four of the students to and from the event. I was struck on the way to the event at how confident and excited all of the students were for the evening. They had practiced their questions and were looking forward to helping the trivia teams out. While none of them said it, I gathered they held their title of expert in high esteem, after all when was the last time anyone has referred to inner city youth as experts when it came to school.

By the end of the night, the students were beaming and fulling lived up to their star status. They held their mini-white boards high rooting on the teams, interacted with tables between rounds and made the night a tremendous success. As I was driving them home, they were full of energy and excitement talking about the evening and their favorite teams. They were already talking about being experts for next year's events.

I walked away that evening knowing the event was a great success, but not based on any how many people attended or how much we raised. Rather, it was knowing that for one night, UrbanFUTURE students were the experts and they knew it. That impression will be long-lasting for all of them for years to come.