Stephen and Bianca with a friend outside the Schnitz.

For Stephen and Bianca, teachers at at Metropolitan Learning Center, the city is a classroom. They regularly take their students off-campus to see performances of all kinds, including the Arts & Lectures Series. When asked which part of the Students to the Schnitz program is more important, the free books or the free tickets to the events, they answered, “Both!” Stephen likes his students to connect the printed book to the author, a person not so unlike themselves, and the effort they put into writing it. Bianca reports that the free copies of Stacy Schiff’s biography Cleopatra were snapped up by eager students.They are encouraged to mark up the books, make notes in the margins, to interact with the original interactive medium. It’s all part of learning that a relationship with a great book can be for the long haul. Apparently they don’t like to share. “Where’s my book?” Bianca demanded, imitating a student. Thanks to the sponsors of Students to the Schnitz for sharing, so the students don’t have to.