Jason Rush takes AP classes. He plays multiple varsity sports. He is involved in multiple extracurriculars. He is articulate. He is also black. Are you surprised? You shouldn’t be. He’s been at it since he came to Kirkwood, and he’ll be at it long after he leaves.
Jason has made his way through KSD as one or two or three of the black students in each of his classes, even before he began taking AP and honors classes in high school he said. He believes he hasn’t been a recipient of blatantly different treatment from his peers, but has picked up on subconscious comments regarding his impressive intelligence, whether a result of his race or not.
“There are definitely micro aggressions you pick up on that people don’t realize they’re saying,” Jason said. “I remember when I was a kid, teachers or just random people would say things like ‘Oh my gosh you speak so well’ and I would think ‘Is it really a surprise that I can do that?’”
Not really. As a son of a teacher and the vice chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis, the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree in Jason’s family in terms of academics. According to Lisa Autry, chemistry teacher, it was obvious Jason was smart. Still, she could tell he wasn’t living up his full potential as a student, and didn’t see him embrace his intellect until the end of his junior year.
Jason first met Autry as a sophomore in regular chemistry. A somewhat typical sophomore guy, according to Autry, Jason rested on his natural intellect, gliding through school without giving more effort than he had to.
A talk with Autry during scheduling that January, however, opened Jason’s eyes to how his work ethic simply wasn’t up to par with his dreams to be a doctor. Rush told her he wanted to take AP Chemistry the following year. Plain and simple, Autry didn’t think he could do it, and she let him know.
“For lack of a better way to put it, that really pissed me off because no one had ever told me I couldn’t do something before,” Rush said.
From then on, Jason and Autry worked together to make dreams become reality, and Jason openly embraced the mountain he had to climb to get there. Second semester of sophomore year, Jason continued to complete the regular chemistry work done by all of his classmates, but in order to prepare him for AP, Autry gave him the honors work as well.
Despite the extra work and tough love, Jason still appreciates what Autry did in order to put him on the track to success. At a school where about 15 percent of black students take an honors or AP class, Jason credits Autry for getting him to challenge himself, take harder courses and for inspiring him to get out of his comfort zone. The duo still visit every once in a while; Jason refers to Autry as his “school mom.”
“Things aren’t just going to happen because you want them to,” Autry said. “You have to make them happen for yourself, and [Jason] is a perfect example of a young man who made that happen for himself.”