Becky Turk came to Clark Street Community School because she wanted to know what she was capable of. “There is something missing from our traditional school systems,” she says, “You get grades and pass classes, but the system doesn’t ensure that you learn deeply or that you know who you are as a person and as a learner. At Clark Street, I became a learner.”
CSCS provided Becky with a framework for authentic and deep learning - a process for building skills and creating new knowledge - that she has utilized during and after high school, “The processes at Clark Street have had a huge impact on me and have helped me in all areas of my life; there is truly no border to it. At CSCS, I realized that learning isn’t about getting it right the first time, but it is about organizing your thoughts and ideas, trying something out, and getting specific and focused feedback on what you made. I learned that feedback isn’t a personal attack - it helps me see areas of growth.”
This experience doesn’t happen in a vacuum; Becky describes the intentional design of CSCS as “...a community created around deep learning where everyone is always welcome and anything is possible.” This attention to each individual student as a unique and evolving person translated into how Becky began to think about herself and the wider world, “The community taught me to value other people and honor that everyone is a different learner and on their own path. I got to be my own person and felt supported; CSCS doesn’t have the kind of competitive energy that isn’t productive for learning. I built my confidence as well as my capacity for empathy and understanding.”
Becky was and is a thoughtful listener, a brilliant writer, and a creative artist, who likely would have made her way through a traditional high school; however her experience at CSCS not only helped her engage in meaningful learning on the way to graduation, but as she says, “Learning at Clark Street helped me find who I am; I found a voice that I otherwise don’t think I would have.”
Becky Turk graduated from Clark Street Community School in 2016; she graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 2021 with a BS in Fine Arts.