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Several
former (MS)2 directors, along with the program's current head, Temba
Maqubela, cut the celebratory 25th anniversary cake in July in front
of George Washington Hall. Left to right: Peter Watt, Maqubela, Edith
Walker, Frank "Skip" Eccles, and Elwin Sykes. |
As a
child, Kristina Halona grew up without running water or electricity
on a New Mexico Navajo reservation. But she had big dreams: Inspired
by the Air Force jets that raced over the desert landscape, she set
her sights on the science of space exploration.
Today, Halona helps develop satellites as an aerospace engineer. It’s
a leap that was made possible, the young college graduate says, by
spending her high school summers hard at work in class-rooms thousands
of miles from her Southwestern home.
Halona was in ninth grade when she first traveled to Phillips Academy
in Andover, Mass. For a quarter-century now, the school’s Math
and Science for Minority Students program, or (MS)2, has brought public
high school students from inner cities and reservations to this leafy
campus just north of Boston. Over three consecutive summers, they
pack in whole years’ worth of courses like physics, calculus
and English—getting a taste of college life while developing
the confidence and skills to succeed there. |
Kristina
Halona (MS)2 '95 |
Virtually
all the program’s graduates go on to college. And when alumni
returned to campus this summer to celebrate (MS)2’s 25th anniversary,
they came back as doctors, engineers and other professionals.
Ted Sizer, a former Phillips Academy headmaster who helped launch
(MS)2, says he couldn’t have anticipated its success. Indeed,
many alumni called it the best experience in their lives—their
first chance to meet so many equally bright kids from similar backgrounds.
“Going to a place like that and learning opens yours eyes,”
says Halona, who graduated from the program in 1995.
Few, though, ever claim it was easy.
At this academic boot camp, students spend five hours in class or
labs and just as much time doing homework six days a week. They take
more classes than other Phillips Academy Summer Session students and
must get a higher minimum grade to pass.
Such rigor is no accident, says program director Temba Maqubela. He
knows what it means to surmount a challenge: A youth anti-apartheid
leader in his native South Africa, he was forced to leave and arrived
in the United States homeless, eventually becoming a chemistry teacher
at Phillips Academy. “We want them to walk onto a campus with
confidence and feel they belong, that they want and deserve it all,
not that they’re being done a favor,” he says.
In class, Maqubela gently throws chalk at students who fall asleep
and admits to having given “the test from hell.” After spending
a half-hour explaining their test answers on the board, several students
moan when he tells the class to retake the test again that night.
Maqubela says he tries to teach them life skills less easy to learn
than the periodic table, such as organizing their time, the loneliness
of studying, and the discipline of learning by repetition. And at
a weekly meeting, he reminds them that their presence is a privilege—not
a right. Some 200 students apply for the program, which is funded
mostly by donations. Only 35 are accepted. |
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They
bring a range of family and financial hardships. One applicant saw
a parent shot to death by the other parent. Many depend on public
assistance.
For students used to excelling without studying much, (MS)2
can be both a rude and pleasant awakening. “It’s nice here
to be able to think,” says Ashleigh Eldemire, a first-year student
from a Boston high school, where she says one teacher often fell asleep
during class. “Here you want to work hard and get good grades.
It’s fun.”
Still, adjusting to campus life can be as jolting as the class work.
Many students arrive at this school of colonial brick buildings spread
among wide lawns having rarely left their urban neighborhoods or rural
reservations. Xavier Del Rosario of Harlem says it was so quiet his
first night, he just couldn’t sleep. Cassandra Toledo says she’s
used to silence on the Jemez Pueblo Reservation in New Mexico, but
had never met an African-American. “This is a big culture shock
to me,” she comments.
(MS)2 students learned about each other’s backgrounds by pre-
paring skits during their second weekend together. A band composed
of African-American students played a song by jazz musician John Coltrane.
Native American students donned traditional garb to dance. “We
try to get them to understand there’s diversity within the
diversity,” Maqubela says.
And while their classes are held separately from other Summer Session
courses, they share dorms, eat cookies and drink milk with all students
on campus after morning classes and play sports together each afternoon.
With a week left in the program, Del Rosario says he doesn’t
want to go home but won’t necessarily mind showing off what he
learned here. “You feel good when you know more than everyone
in the class,” he says.
Douglas Tyson, a science teacher from a Washington public school,
says (MS)2 students return energized. “They come back with an
infectious enthusiasm for academics,” says Tyson, who has helped
some two dozen students successfully apply. They also come back more
confident, knowing they aren’t alone. “It dispels any notion
that it’s acting white to be smart or to want to achieve or take
books home,” Tyson says.
By the third summer, the students’ focus shifts ahead. They take
a college-planning course and once a week visit top colleges, including
Yale, Brown and Dartmouth.
When he was a third-year (MS)2 student in 1995, Roy Adams was unsure
about where to go to college. The guidance counselor at his Bronx
high school suggested a New York state school. Adams says he couldn’t
think of any better alternatives. But one day, one of the (MS)2 teachers
stopped him and said, “Roy, you should think about Yale.”
 He
wound up there, majoring in economics and playing football. He also
convinced several friends who had never thought of Ivy League schools
to apply, too.
“I started seeing the potential in me,” says Adams, who
now works as a vice president at a financial-services firm. “It
really broadened my horizons and introduced me to a whole world I
was not privy to as a young kid growing up in the Bronx.” |
| This
article, which has been adapted with permission of The Christian Science
Monitor, appeared in its July 30, 2002, edition. Seth Stern is a staff
writer for the newspaper. |
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