"I wish all high schools could offer students the outside activities that were available at the old Harrison High on Chicago's West Side in the late '20s. They enabled me to become part of a school newspaper, drama group, football team and student government"
About this Quote
Nostalgia is doing real political work here. Kupcinet isn’t just reminiscing about pep rallies and practice fields; he’s making a case that public institutions can manufacture belonging. By locating his formative years at “old Harrison High” on Chicago’s West Side in the late 1920s, he’s invoking an era when a big-city public school could function like a civic engine - one that turned teenagers into citizens, performers, teammates, and local reporters. The list matters: newspaper, drama, football, student government. He’s not bragging; he’s tracing the pipeline from extracurricular life to a public-facing career in journalism, built on confidence, collaboration, and the habit of showing up.
The subtext is an argument about access. “I wish all high schools could offer” carries the sting of scarcity - a quiet acknowledgment that many schools, especially in urban districts, no longer have the funding, staffing, or stability to provide that buffet of identities. Kupcinet’s own multipronged involvement reads like a menu from a better-resourced, more socially cohesive time, before decades of disinvestment, segregationist housing policy, and the slow strangulation of arts and sports budgets narrowed what school could be.
Context sharpens the plea. A West Side Chicago high school in the late ’20s sat on the edge of the Depression, amid intense migration and neighborhood change. In that pressure cooker, structured “outside activities” weren’t fluff; they were scaffolding. Kupcinet’s intent is to remind readers that the extras are often the core - the place where students practice democracy, not just study it.
The subtext is an argument about access. “I wish all high schools could offer” carries the sting of scarcity - a quiet acknowledgment that many schools, especially in urban districts, no longer have the funding, staffing, or stability to provide that buffet of identities. Kupcinet’s own multipronged involvement reads like a menu from a better-resourced, more socially cohesive time, before decades of disinvestment, segregationist housing policy, and the slow strangulation of arts and sports budgets narrowed what school could be.
Context sharpens the plea. A West Side Chicago high school in the late ’20s sat on the edge of the Depression, amid intense migration and neighborhood change. In that pressure cooker, structured “outside activities” weren’t fluff; they were scaffolding. Kupcinet’s intent is to remind readers that the extras are often the core - the place where students practice democracy, not just study it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Student |
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