Local educators launch nationwide Smart is Cool campaign

Janice Smalls

Juggling, hip-hop music, lottery scratch tickets. No, it’s not a street party — it’s a unique motivation and study skills workshop called Smart is Cool, sponsored by the Boston Learning Center and local schools.

The workshop is the inspiration of dynamic husband-and-wife team Ayele Shakur and Gary Bracey. The couple runs the Boston Learning Center, a nonprofit tutoring agency located in Dorchester. For nearly a decade, Shakur and Bracey have helped motivate struggling teens to go from failure and mediocrity to academic success.

“We’re helping kids see that they can be both ‘street smart’ and ‘school smart,’” says Shakur, the learning center’s executive director. “Many of the kids we work with think they’re too cool to be smart, and will even downplay their intelligence in order to seem cool in front of their friends.”

Shakur and Bracey have worked with over 900 students in Boston, helping many youngsters make the dramatic leap from earning D’s and F’s on their report cards to A’s and B’s. The springboard for that leap is the learning center’s award-winning Building Inspiration to Fight Failure Program, better known as BIFF.

Bracey, now the chief financial officer of Boston Learning Center, says he knows what it’s like to be a kid who doesn’t take school seriously.

“I was just like them when I was their age,” he admits, “so I can relate to how they see school.” Bracey grew up in Queens, N.Y., as a mediocre student who spent plenty of time in the principal’s office for bad behavior. But he later turned his life around, becoming the owner of one of the largest minority-owned printing companies in New England before joining the Boston Learning Center staff.

“I use entrepreneurship as a hook to get kids to see the relationship between working hard in school and being financially successful in life,” Bracey says. The BIFF Motivational Program even includes a Summer Entrepreneurship Camp where kids get to launch their own student-run businesses. It’s a powerful message that’s inspiring kids across the city to take school more seriously.

Now Shakur and Bracey are taking their motivational message to schools all across the country. They have written a new bestselling book called “Stop Flunking!: A Guide for Parents — How to Motivate Your Child to Get A’s in School.” The book is designed to teach parents some of the unique motivational methods used in the BIFF program.

To help promote the book, they’re offering free workshops in urban communities. Smart is Cool is a two-hour, fun, upbeat, unconventional and informative event that introduces parents and teens to a variety of study tools, such as speed reading, memory strategies and learning styles.

To help encourage attendance, every parent receives a free lottery scratch ticket. Parents and teens participate in activities together to win gift cards of up to $50, along with other prizes.

“We know parents in the community are busy, and that they have a lot of things competing for their time and attention. But we want parents to make school success a priority,” says Shakur. “It’s so important for parents to be actively involved in their child’s education, and if a few door prizes will help encourage parents to come out, then we’re all for it.”

The Smart is Cool workshops are becoming a big hit. It is a timely topic since so many urban school districts, including Boston Public Schools, are grappling with rising dropout rates, the achievement gap between white and minority students, and the proficiency requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law. Requests are pouring in from schools across the country that have heard about Smart is Cool and BIFF through Shakur and Bracey’s numerous recent radio and television appearances.

Of course, there’s also good word of mouth. Many of the accelerated learning strategies presented in the Smart is Cool workshop are helpful for both kids and adults.

“I enjoyed the different strategies and resources to assist my child in school, which were also very helpful for myself,” says Tanya Richardson, parent of a seventh-grader at the Lewenberg Middle School in Mattapan.

For more information on the Smart is Cool campaign, including information on upcoming workshops, visit www.student-motivation-for-better-grades.com or call 617-265-7170.