E.O. Wilson and a Powerful Mind in Harlem

I always say that people, kids especially, need two things: the right heroes, and a deep desire to learn. Over 12 years ago I met a man who had a profound impact on me and embodied both of these things: Ivan Hageman. He grew up in a crack rehab center, was Harvard educated and accomplished but opted out of the system to return to ‘El Barrio’, the neighborhood of East Harlem, with a grass roots approach to shelter, protect and nurture the minds of the many kids who had lost the ovarian lottery. Kids born to socioeconomic circumstances not of their choosing and ethnic heritages commonly treated as a liability, as shackles to shed instead of rich roots to celebrate in the Caucasian cacophony of insularity that long defined New York City.

Ivan taught me to speak with conviction. And he inspired me to co-found Coney Island Prep, the first charter school in my native Coney Island, Brooklyn. I spent today with Ivan and the full East Harlem School at Exodus House, (where I first volunteered over a decade ago) and was reminded of how amazing this man is, standing in a now state of the art multi-million dollar facility and the eye-opening impact he has had and is having on these kids and this community. Here are his words, reprinted with his permission from a recent communication to friends of the school.

…The School is quiet now. Another graduation has passed, and we ready ourselves for our new students and our summer semester. I have some time to reflect in these pauses in our calendric rhythm, and much of my thought has turns to these most recent alumni. After having served as a source of some occasional low level despair, as do most rising 8th grade classes, this recent graduating class became quite dear to us in these last several months. They became a group that included talented scholars, actors, and athletes. Most important, they became a group. Not lone virtuosi.

So much of what we hear in the media is about the lone teacher making all difference. Or the lone principal. Or the lone strategy for bubbling in the right answers on a high stakes test. Or the lone charter cartel with best practices for the urban student. How lonely are all the answers to our national education question.

From my office wall hangs a small Japanese wood block print. It shows the priest, Nichiren, skirting a humble mountain village as he heads into exile. We cannot see his face, and his body is bowed beneath a burden and against the wintery blast. He is alone. A couple of nights earlier, I talked with an architect friend and his spouse, a wise academic. We spoke of struggles of the Iranian people, Persian politics, and finally of the existential horror one must experience in exile- when one must leave home forever. The families that send us their children have all experience some form of exile, too, as have most Americans, in one generation or another. We are a nation of exiles.

E.O. Wilson takes things a step further, suggesting that psychological exile is our human destiny: unlike the mind of other animals, our neurology lets us know that we live; we will die, and then sends us off on a search to make sense of the grim news. Few can do so. Lives of the lone and quiet despair bloom and fade all around us. Not so on our little half acre in El Barrio!

Together, amidst the play of light and shadow that fills our new school building, we make a home. In the face of all of the uncertainty and frightful probability that lies beyond our walls and in our minds, we end our exile. Together, students embrace Algebraic unknowns and make Shakespearean forays into the loving, vengeful human heart. On the soccer pitch, lacrosse field, and science lab, students struggle with problem solving, team work, and finding that last reserve of courage. Together, students soften their hearts, open their eyes, and strengthen their bodies. This is all truly beyond metric or measure, but obvious for all to see. It is in circles of debate and inquiry, not lone rows of rote resignation, that we find our humanity and our true home.

It was a thrill for us to see this graduating class, together, leave us from our new and serene backyard – and to know they have this same home to which they will return. What a blessing it would be if all children in our city could end their exile in a place like this.

Ivan M. Hageman
Head of School