Summer Program Energizes Students Interested In Government

By Tanjua Damon

Recollections of summer school usually elicit groans from typical high school students. Two Newtown High School students, however, who opted to spend three weeks at the Junior Statesmen Summer School at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., say they actually enjoyed the rigorous academics while experiencing the government first hand last summer.

Charles Rosentel, a senior, and Rachel Stern, a junior, are both members of the Junior Statesmen of America (JSA) chapter at Newtown High School and wanted to experience more of the organization’s opportunities.

The intensive three-week program included an advanced placement course in government enhanced by a high-level speakers program and nightly congressional workshops. The 300 students from across the nation and several foreign countries were also able to participate in informal, off-the-record question and answer sessions with national leaders.

Many of the sessions were held at the United States Capitol, White House, and United States State Department. Other orientations were held at the Pentagon, CIA, and the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China. There were 40 speakers during the three-week session, including Colin Powell, Norman Mineta, Andrew Card, Ari Fleisher, Rear Admiral Quigley, Senators Hegel and Wellstone as well as Congressmen Barr, Frank, and Hutchinson.

Rachel, who is currently the vice-mayor of the region that includes Connecticut and New York, found the summer session exhilarating and informative.

“I expected it to be great, but it by far surpassed all I anticipated,” she said. “The people I met were by far the best aspect of the summer school.”

Charles is the president of the high school chapter. He felt that the experience will not only help the JSA program locally, but will also benefit him in the future.

“The issues didn’t stop at congressional sessions. We did a lot of debating in the hallways,” he said. “Educationally, it provided me the opportunity to see there’s not one answer and the debates provided me with that. At the same time we got to experience government.”

Both students signed up to take the AP Government class, where their professor taught them about government, focusing on Abraham Lincoln and the decisions he had to make in history. Rachel and Charles had to interview three people about Lincoln – a congressman, a foreign embassy member, and a foreign correspondent. The interviews will be published.

“It’s helped me tremendously. It just helped my speaking ability through the congressional workshops,” Rachel said. “It gave me a better understanding of the fundamentals of government.”

JSA is a program primarily organized by youth. There are chapters at high schools around the nation, where students participate in conferences and debates about various issues in today’s society – campaign finance reform, legalizing marijuana, abortion, affirmative action, hate crimes – giving students the opportunity to experience the role of communicating the different sides to many issues.

“It’s really, I find, the only organization where you get to work with other high school students and hear their opinion and have them hear yours because it is student run,” Rachel said. “Every aspect of the chapters and conferences are run by students.”

Summer school turned out to be more than just a classroom experience for these high school students. It ended up giving them skills that they will be able to educate others with as well as take with them in their future endeavors.

“Not only is it what it promises, you get the classroom experience, you get to go around DC and meet prominent people,” Charles said. “I know for myself previously I didn’t want to debate as much. But at the last conference I’ve been dying to get up to say something. It will give other people the experience they need to succeed.”