This is an excerpt from the full article, which originally appeared in The Core.

By Carrie Golus

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 6 P.M.
AKARAMA FOUNDATION
62ND AND INGLESIDE, CHICAGO

"You can change your life. You can get the education you've always wanted."
—Flyer for Odyssey Project Chicago

OUTSIDE, IT'S DARK. Inside, the lights are all off except one, so that Hamza Walker, AB'88, can use his laptop to project images on the wall: right now, a coin collection. His art history class tonight centers on the origin of museums, as well as "the art-culture system," in the term of anthropologist James Clifford.

Two and a half minutes into Walker's lecture, Honni Harris asks her first question: "Do you collect?"

Walker, whose day job is associate curator and director of education at the Renaissance Society, the contemporary art museum based in Cobb Hall, considers. "I'd like to say no, but that's probably not true," he says. "I'm lying to you right now." The ten other students in the class laugh.

"I know you are," says Harris. The students laugh harder.

This article orginally appeared in Catalyst Chicago

Students in low-achieving high schools are often required to take double periods of basic reading and math, a strategy that aims to raise their skills up to grade level. But Harlan High School is trying a different approach: Placing a group of middle-tier students in a higher-level humanities program.

This fall, the school began offering the Clemente Course/Odyssey Project. The Odyssey Project is designed to get students—who are at or close to grade level—involved in the humanities and teach them how use the knowledge in everyday life. Harlan is the first high school in the city to offer the course, which covers topics such as philosophy, literature, art criticism, writing and history.

Some of the students were recommended by the 8th grade elementary school counselor, while others signed up on their own.