"People said we couldn't do it," said Dr. Herminio Martinez with a touch of wonder in his voice as he told Education Update about Lehman College's Bronx Institute, a nonprofit organization he directs that is helping underprivileged adolescents in the Bronx to expand their academic and social horizons and prepare them for college.
Martinez, a professor of middle and high school education at Lehman College, knows what it's like to be poor and hungry for an education. A Cuban refugee, he arrived in this country at age 14 without his parents, and it was only through the good graces of a neighbor that he was able to officially enroll in middle school. Martinez is now repaying that favor many times over - that is, 8,000 times over. In the ten years since he's been at the institute, he has built it into a multimillion dollar, grant-supported program serving more than 8,000 Bronx students and families in 48 middle and high schools throughout the Bronx.
Largest among the Institute's far-reaching programs is GEAR-UP (Gaining- Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs), a Department of Education-funded initiative that focuses on getting kids ready for college in ways that are as diverse as the imaginations of Martinez and his staff, including SAT preparation, parent education, peer counseling (the oldest cohort, now juniors in college, serve as role models for the younger institute students), training for students to take entrance exams to specialized high schools, college tours and financial aid advisement, and a Saturday science and math enrichment program. Cultural outings to museums, theater and opera are an important element of the program: "We're bridging the gap between the isolation these kids face and the cultural wealth of New York City.... We get the kids out of the Bronx," explained Martinez.
Some kids get even further out of the Bronx; through the Experiment for International Living, the institute offers travel experiences abroad to countries as varied as China, Japan, England, while high-performing students may attend paid residential summer programs in Ivy League schools like Harvard and Yale. ''These experiences change the culture in the schools when kids hear what their peers are doing," explained Martinez. He's especially |
excited about a reading initiative that provides each child with several books and brings contemporary authors to the New York Public Library for inspirational book discussions (a recent author, who wrote about being a child soldier in Africa, was especially powerful for the students). To cross the digital divide, Martinez raised grant money for 6,000 students to have laptops ("Now we're looking into Kindles," he added with excitement). A smaller but no less important program within the Bronx Institute known as ENLACE (Engaging Latin Communities for Education) helps Latino students of high academic promise to attend competitive colleges and universities.
The success stories from this astonishing, decade-long program would bring tears to the eyes of even the most stonehearted policymaker. They include a quiet Latino boy who solved a challenging math problem ("It was the most brilliant answer the teacher had gotten in 30 years!") and ultimately gained admission to a select high school, augmented by a summer sessions in a gifted and talented program at Johns Hopkins University, and a young Latino woman who matriculated at Wesleyan University after spending a post-graduate year in a private boarding school to beef up her prerequisite coursework. "She's now a junior, studying abroad for the semester," said Martinez with obvious satisfaction
in her remarkable journey.
Martinez is clear about the challenges in his work. "Families have many barriers [to success] that are both real and perceived. We try to break down the barriers between reality and perception." Those conflicting emotions are perhaps best articulated by Denise, an ENLACE student who had an opportunity to be a summer scholar in the U.K.: "I was afraid of stepping outside of my comfort zone,” she reflected. “If ever you are given the opportunity to learn or experience something new, to meet new people, I encourage you strongly to take that opportunity because if you don’t, you will regret it. You‘ll be missing out on a life-changing experience, and that’s what this program was for me.”
Indeed, for Martinez and his caring staff at the Bronx Institute, changing lives is what it’s all about.
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