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Photographs by Jennifer Silverberg
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Gail Crosson
Rossman School
Gail Crosson’s course at Rossman School might be dubbed “Refrigerator Art 101.” Her classroom is dotted with young students’ work, done in nearly every medium imaginable: pastel watercolors and ceramics, paper and bright-colored tempera (pictured). For the past 27 years, Crosson has encouraged youngsters from first through sixth grade to create. The resulting art is scattered throughout the Creve Coeur school, even on the ceiling tiles of one wing. Crosson’s goal is for students to develop an appreciation of art beyond museums—in nature, architecture, and their everyday surroundings. “I want students to look at things more carefully,” says Crosson. “It’s something they can do forever.”
Ellen Wu
Marquette High School
How rare is a perfect SAT score? Of 1.5 million tests taken in 2009, only 297 students achieved such a feat, according to the College Board. That’s less than 0.02 percent. Among this year’s elite group: Ellen Wu, a senior at Marquette High School in Chesterfield, who aced the test this past fall, during her second time taking it. “The first time told me that I should study,” she says, adding that she’d needed to brush up on her math skills in particular. As for the second time around—how did she react when she saw that she’d achieved a perfect score? “I thought, ‘Wow, they must have made a mistake,’” she says. Nope, no mistakes.
NTV News
North Kirkwood Middle School
Visit nearly any journalism school these days, and you’ll hear a certain buzzword being thrown around a lot: “convergence.” The idea is that new media requires a blend of skill sets—those traditionally needed for broadcast, print, and online. For a certain generation, it’s a leap; for a younger generation, it will come naturally. At North Kirkwood Middle School, some students already have a head start. Eighth-grade directors, reporters, writers, and technicians produce a weekday broadcast known as NTV News, which launched online last year. This semester’s 10 students (including Jason Rush and Kevin Murphy, pictured) shoot video, write scripts, anchor the school news, and post podcasts online (kweb.kirkwoodschools.org/ManwarK). Yes, the broadcasts look like you might expect: produced by middle-schoolers. But for those who become journalists, the experience will pay off—even if they don’t realize it yet.
Darel Shelton
Forsyth School
Want to know how passionate Darel Shelton is about geography? Check out the necktie. The sixth-grade social-studies instructor helps students memorize every country in the world—roughly 260, all told—over the course of three years. Fourth-graders map the United States, fifth-graders study South America, and sixth-graders memorize and map the entire globe. “The most basic geographic literacy is knowing the places and regions of the world,” explains Shelton, adding that the long-term project teaches students more than Kazakhstan’s location. “They learn the process of how to accomplish a complicated task.” And as if that weren’t a continental achievement, for the school’s “Mapping Night” in March, Shelton has procured a basketball court–sized traveling map of Africa.
Bernadette Wharton
Rosati-Kain High School
On January 16, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Archbishop Robert Carlson stood inside the Cathedral Basilica and handed awards to 27 students from Catholic secondary schools like Cardinal Ritter, CBC, Chaminade, De Smet, Nerinx Hall, and Rosati-Kain. Among the last school’s student body, a senior named Bernadette Wharton accepted the honor—the Martin Luther King, Jr. Model of Justice Award. So what had Wharton done to deserve such recognition? She is president of the Pacesetters, the teen chapter of Jack and Jill of America. Spoke at an annual NAACP fundraiser banquet. Was student ambassador for two years. Then there were her “summer breaks”: traveling abroad as a People to People Student Ambassador, attending the Exploration Summer Program at Yale University, participating in the National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine. Oh, and let’s not forget her downtime: She’s a dancer, catechist, and black belt in karate.
Frances Dolan Holloran Culinary Arts Program
Marian Middle School
Marian Middle School recently launched its own food revolution: the Frances Dolan Holloran Culinary Arts program. In September, the city of St. Louis’ only all-girls middle school began teaching practical recipes in its state-of-the-art kitchen. Chef D’Aun Carrell (pictured) teaches an after-school enrichment class once a week that educates students about things like how to prepare foods, measure ingredients, and hold a knife while chopping produce. On the menu so far: homemade salads and dressings, pizza, carrot-cake muffins, and smoothies. The aim is to encourage healthy habits that the young women can carry on for a lifetime. Jamie Oliver would be proud.
Nunade Wesseh
St. Mary’s High School
Nunade Wesseh’s path to St. Mary’s High School was dramatically different than those of his classmates. Born in Liberia in 1992, during a time of civil war, Wesseh and his family fled to the Ivory Coast when he was an infant, then returned eight years later. It was in Liberia that Wesseh lost his mother at the age of 10. Shortly after, the family returned to the Ivory Coast—just before the outbreak of another civil war. This time, Wesseh’s family became refugees, living for years in camps, where the boy was unable to attend school. With the help of the United Nations, Wesseh’s family eventually moved to St. Louis, and he began taking classes at the Catholic, all-boys school as a junior. Now in the top 10 percent of his class, Wesseh joined the soccer team as a senior and started in the championship game, where the Dragons were crowned the Class 2 state champs.
