LYNN — The Lynn Tech SkillsUSA team, which in the past has implemented nationally recognized projects on hunger, substance abuse, and homelessness, put this year’s focus on facilitating conversations about tolerance, bias and privilege.
“They really wanted to put a voice into the community about some of the issues they had been seeing this year,” said team instructor Jason McCuish, an English teacher at Lynn Tech.
The group led an interactive conversation Monday featuring videos, surveys and participation from a group of about 30 Lynn Tech teachers.
The discussion was led by three Lynn Tech students — Nyssa Lewis, Juan Cubides and Brian Lopez — who shared their experiences with privilege while guiding the audience through a series of lessons.
“We wanted to create this workshop to celebrate our differences and have these conversations with the community,” said Lewis.
The presentation discussed empathy, microaggressions, implicit biases and different types of privilege.
One moment that stood out to Lopez from those conversations was the story of how one of his teachers felt humiliated walking through the airport and being viewed as a potential terrorist threat.
“That really stuck with me because I don’t have to walk around assuming that people think I might be a terrorist with a bull’s eye on my back,” he said.The discussion was the latest in a series of conversations that started in February and will continue throughout the next few months.
SkillsUSA is a national partnership of students, teachers and industry leaders working together to ensure America has a skilled workforce. National competitions are part of the nonprofit, where SkillsUSA chapters create and implement community service projects. The Lynn Tech team has performed well at past competitions. For three out of the past four years, the team has been named a top chapter nationally.
Lynn Tech is a very active chapter, sometimes working with as many as 1,000 students at a time. This year, the school’s team features eight presenters, but also includes a larger leadership team of 25 students.
In the past, the chapter published a children’s book called “Tech Goes to Tiger Town,” which encouraged young kids to consider technical careers like culinary arts, electrical trades, engineering and nursing assistance.
The group decided to focus on that sort of work because of the political climate in the country, along with the limitations of doing in-person work during the COVID-19 pandemic. The result was something that the team members were all proud of.
“It’s been really fantastic having kids at 16 and 17 talking about these issues,” said McCuish.
Cubides, a newcomer to the SkillsUSA team, said the experience helped him grow as a presenter.
“Back then, I would never have seen myself presenting to a group of 40 people online. I would have told you I would rather drink orange juice after brushing my teeth than present in front of people,” said Cubides. “But I feel like it’s been a really great experience to take this challenge on. Now I’m way more confident about myself than I used to (be) and I’m not afraid of speaking my mind.”
The students were moved by how their conversations have reached people, with participants sometimes in tears after sharing certain experiences.
“To see that the presentations are emotionally moving people, it’s an incredible feeling,” said Lewis.
Guthrie Scrimgeour can be reached at [email protected].
