Community Spotlight: Jaden Powell
Ask anyone at SPIN who really makes the organization run, and Jaden Powell's name comes up fast. He's been an instructor with SPIN Enrich, our elementary school program, since right after his high school graduation in summer 2017.
Jaden comes from a family of teachers: his mom is a receptionist at South Shore and used to run a daycare, and his aunt, a former track runner, still teaches today. But the deeper pull toward the classroom came later, during his senior year of high school. He was studying the school-to-prison pipeline in his civics class while navigating being the only Black male student in his grade. This planted the drive to make sure other kids didn't feel as alone as he did. Today, as one of relatively few Black men many of his students will have as a teacher, he's made a habit of introducing kids to a scientist or engineer of the month who reflects backgrounds they don't always see represented in STEM.
Outside of SPIN, Jaden is an audio engineer who writes, produces, and records music. He doesn't separate that identity from his teaching; if anything, the two feed each other. "I like puzzles. I like working on things that are challenging," he says, and that same appetite for a hard problem is what he tries to instill in his students, especially when a project doesn't go the way they expected.
That shows up in how Jaden runs a classroom. His favorite projects put kids in the role of an engineer, having them study how something real actually works before designing and building their own version of it: mapping out a 3D city block to learn about urban planning, or researching an ecosystem and then inventing an animal built to survive in it. His curriculum allows students to solve real problems as a team rather than chasing one right answer, which helps build a lifelong foundation for critical thinking.
Jaden's own life has taught him plenty about doing hard things, and it's shaped the one piece of wisdom he most wants his students to carry with them: that persevering isn't about feeling strong, it's about refusing to stop. "Failure is not an option," he says. "These moments aren't forever. I may have had times where it was hard to take a step forward, but I never went back, I always kept going toward my goals."
Nearly a decade later, that's still what keeps him coming back, along with the chance to watch the same kids grow up in front of him. Some of the students Jaden has worked with since Kindergarten are heading into 5th grade now, and he’s proud to have been a part in each step of that journey. As he puts it: "I love what SPIN does, and I love that we can have an impact on the youth. Students, especially those that, like me growing up, did not have things like this."