Youngest Scholars Program Lets Pupils’ Light Shine
By Nicole Norfleet, Philadelphia Daily News
Jul. 24–On a hot summer day when other kids might have been playing outside or watching TV, the North Philadelphia elementary-school pupils, wearing hats and crowns made of newspapers, were re-enacting America’s fight for independence.
“Oh, John Hancock, you didn’t leave any room for the rest of us to sign it!” exclaimed a pupil portraying an annoyed John Adams as another, playing Hancock, pretended to sign the Declaration of Independence.
The “Youngest Scholars,” 21 of the best and brightest third-, fourth- and fifth-graders at the Gesu School, an independent Catholic School at 17th and Thompson streets, had spent two weeks studying Colonial America before performing skits about what they had learned.
The scenes highlighted significant points in American history, with pupils depicting leaders including Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and Molly Pitcher, famous for filling in for her wounded husband as a Revolutionary artillery gunner.
The Youngest Scholars program, which runs from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on summer weekdays, provides five weeks of academic and extracurricular activities to help low-income pupils fulfill their academic potential.
“It’s about exposure,” Chris Beck, president of the Gesu School, said about the program. “It’s about new opportunities. It’s opening doors, opening eyes.”
“It’s all worth it when a student comes up to you and says they are so excited for the class,” said Kelly Siddle, 21, a teaching assistant in the program. “It’s the most rewarding job I’ve ever had.”
At the end of the play, Siddle, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, instructed the kids to pick their favorite props. Javier Price-Butler, 8, selected a crown made of yellow construction paper that he wore to portray King George III, the monarch against whom the American Colonies fought in the Revolutionary War.
“He’s funny and he’s intelligent,” Javier said about King George. “He loves tea.” Javier, who is entering the third grade at Gesu, said he thought that the summer program was fun and better than regular school.
The free program is the brainchild of John DiIulio, faculty director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Fox Leadership Program, which helps fund the Youngest Scholars.
Last year, those below the poverty line who tested among the top 25 percent of U.S. high-school students were twice as likely to drop out as others in that group, DiIulio said.
“The problem cannot be addressed in just the high-school years, because by then they have had these problems for years,” said DiIulio, a Gesu trustee.
Meanwhile, down the hall from where the Youngest Scholars were performing, two pupils jumped up from their seats, each eager for a turn at the podium.
It was the civics and public-speaking class of the Young Scholars program for middle-schoolers, and the teacher was firing questions at pupils about the economy.
The Young Scholars program, which the Youngest Scholars was modeled after, focuses mainly on getting pupils into competitive high schools, which aids their academic future, said H.L. Ratliff, program director. Young Scholars alumni have gone on to the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University and the University of Delaware.
Teachers in the Young Scholars program are regular classroom teachers; assistants are former Young Scholars or college students.
Desmond Shannon, 20, a junior at St. Joseph’s University, said he was in the program for two years in middle school.
“I know that when I was here I didn’t really want to be here,” he said. “No kid wants to go to school in the summer.”
But the program kept him ahead in school, he said. He would learn topics during the summer that the school wouldn’t cover until the following year. Shannon wants the new Young Scholars to regard him as a role model, he said.
Desiree Grant, 17, a teaching assistant for language arts, was a Young Scholar before entering sixth grade. Grant, a hig- schooler at Germantown Friends School, said that Scholars are comfortable with teaching assistants because the assistants are closer in age to them than are regular classroom teachers.
“We’re kind of living in the same generation as opposed to someone older, so they think they can ask us different questions,” she said.
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