Junior Mose Berkowitz grins as he collapses onto a couch after a long day. It's almost eleven on a Wednesday night and he's just getting back to campus after hours of classes, activities and work.
But despite the exhaustingly long day, he still lights up at the mention of the project that has been keeping him so busy. Berkowitz, a scholar at the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, has been working on something that is very close to his heart.
Drawing from his experiences at the Tisch College, his love of children and his own personal experience - he has been partially deaf since birth - Berkowitz has worked to revitalize "Understanding our Differences," a program designed by the nonprofit Disability Awareness Institute to educate elementary school children about disabilities. He has adapted the program, which is used at a variety of Massachusetts schools, to fit the needs of local schools in Medford.
Berkowitz said his passion stemmed from his own disability, which was a big factor in terms of his social and academic development when he was growing up.
"It really helped me with self-advocacy," he said.
Now, Berkowitz spends his time advocating for others. He said the program he designed will look to address the wariness he has noticed in young children about the subject of disabilities.
"It comes down to two myths," he said. "Kids think that [disabilities] are contagious and also fear that if you have one disability, you have them all."
By educating the children, Berkowitz said, he hopes to make an impact on how students treat each other.
"Kids have the power to change the world," he said. "They're just so open-minded."
After organizing the program, Berkowitz gathered a group of volunteers and headed to the Brooks Elementary School on Boston Ave., where they visited classrooms to talk to the kids there about disabilities. He and his group had the kids play games, use assisted-listening devices and try to lip-read with classmates.
"It's really a small window into the world of people who have disabilities," he said.
Berkowitz also talked to students during the presentation about his experiences with hearing loss. The Sharon, Mass. native is a triplet, but none of his siblings or other family members have hearing loss.
By recounting his experiences growing up, Berkowitz hopes to create empathy among students, and to help them understand the experiences of people with disabilities.
Berkowitz said the project was no easy undertaking.
"It's a great reward, but a great challenge," he says. "This project ... it's like an iceberg, you only see 20 percent [of the results], but it was so hard to organize and everything."
This year, Berkowitz is taking a leave of absence from the Tisch Scholars program, but he said he wants to return to the program next year.
"It's akin to me going abroad," he said. "[The program is] like a toolbox. I take what I learned there, use it for other places, and bring it back."
In the meantime, he has not given up volunteering. Perpetually busy, Berkowitz is involved with off-campus groups such as Deaf, Inc. and the Horace Mann School for the Deaf in Allston. He said that taking a break from Tisch Scholars has allowed him to work with groups beyond Tufts' reach.
In addition to his volunteer work, Berkowitz stays occupied with many other activities.
"College is hard for me because I want to do everything," he said.
He works two jobs, one at Newbury Comics in Cambridge and another at the Tufts Educational Day Care center as a one-on-one teacher. And, true to his passions, his work at the day-care involves many children with disabilities.
Combining his interests in audiology, speech pathology and music in general, Berkowitz is the programming director for WMFO, Tufts' student radio station, where he hosts the show "Space is the Place." He is also the treasurer of the American Sign Language Club on campus, and spends his summers as a leader of FOCUS, a pre-orientation program focused on community service.
Berkowitz also enjoys taking pictures in his spare time, which is anything but copious.
"I like to go to places people normally don't go, like the Mystic River and abandoned buildings," he said. "It's all part of my do-everything, see-everything motto."
He said he expects to take the experience from the daycare center, Deaf Inc., and the Horace Mann School with him next year and apply it to "Understanding Our Differences."
"It was such a good resource," he said. "I want to go back."
