The team behind the “Bridging Gaps and Building Capacity” initiative carefully crafted a program for students spanning first through eighth grades (and some rising ninth graders) targeting students from five West Philadelphia schools: Penn Alexander, Henry C. “Instead, we give them the message of, ‘Hey, let’s come back, let’s be together, and let’s enjoy it.’”
“Our goal was to provide something in person for kids that would help grease their wheels to get ready to go back to school but would not be remedial, would not give the message of, ‘You have lost all this learning, you have to catch back up,’” said Caroline Watts, director of the Office of School and Community Engagement at Penn GSE and one of the partnership’s leads. Flourishing in large part because of an award from the University’s inaugural Projects for Progress (P4P) initiative, the program’s model-balancing engaging academic content with entertaining experiences outside of the classroom-was unique by strategic and thoughtful design, especially amid a pandemic that kept many students from learning in person for the past year and a half. This summer, Moreno was one of more than 200 enrolled students in a special six-week collaboration between the Penn Graduate School of Education and the Netter Center for Community Partnerships. No matter the activity, whether it’s math or writing or art or gardening, she said, “they always incorporate fun with it.” “We just have fun every day,” said 14-year-old Luella Moreno, chatting inside a classroom at the Penn Alexander School this past July.
0 kommentar(er)
