Day 1

Our first day exploring Chicago was great! We started our day with brunch and headed out to the museum of African American history. The most interesting part was the exhibit located at the bottom of the museum. It was a timeline of events dating from slavery to President Obama’s election to presidency. It was a very eye-opening and informative exhibit, that made us reflect on issues with a new perspective. One display that stood out was the diagram of a slave ship that showed how tightly packed all of the slaves was. There was no moving room or free space for the slaves. This really depicted how awful the living conditions were (unsanitary, which obviously means diseases). Another cool part of the museum was a giant sculpture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s head. Engraved in the sculpture were images of people and encouraging words. This was a great way to honor Dr. King, and it was definitely appealing to eye. Next on our list was to visit Muchin Prep in Downtown Chicago and have an idea of what to expect for the week. We also took a brief tour of the school. It was interesting to see a school like Muchin, it was very modern and had many available resources for students. It was also cool to see faculty encouraging its students by posting college logos around the school for them to keep a constant goal in mind. The school also has many strict disciplinary rules and it’ll be interesting to see how students will respond to them this week. These students have so much support from faculty and we’re super excited to begin our week with them! After dinner we reflected on our day by telling the difference between different connotations of words. For example, “sacrificing my break” vs. “using my break to…”. We concluded that word choice is super important when communicating with our community partners and other people in general. Today was not only a fun day, but also thought-provoking. We’re excited for the week to start!!

Luther King Jr’s Sculpture

-Makayla & Theodora