Celebrating the Academic Ascent of Monique Taylor-Myers

Sunday, 4 August 2013, will be a day for even greater celebration than is each day in the life of the New Salem Educational Initiative. For that will be the day when Monique Taylor-Myers (name assigned for data privacy reasons) moves from her high perch as a superlative student possessed of extraordinary math and verbal skills, toward the academic summit as a young person realistically aspiring to be the best student in the state of Minnesota.

Such things happen for a reason. Preparation begins years in advance.  Monique first enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative as a Grade 3 student. I observed immediately that she is very bright. But I also heard accounts from her mother (Janette) and grandmother (Sonya) that Monique struggled at times at school, that teachers identified her math and reading skills as languishing below grade level, and that there was at home considerable concern over these indicators of subpar academic performance. I also witnessed a couple of academic years go by before Monique's performance on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) in math and reading met the goals that she, her mother, grandmother, and I had for her.

Then, at the beginning of Monique’s Grade 5 year, she reached grade level performance and began a steady, sure ascent toward the head of her class. Each week she mastered math skills above grade level and successfully took on challenges more typical of those at the Grade 6 and Grade 7 levels. Her vocabulary became ever richer; she even acquired an understanding of many words properly termed college level. She rarely missed a weekly academic session with me, and when she did, she rescheduled to another day.

By Grade 8, Monique entered a rigorous weekly session that I created expressly for her and two other students in the same grade who were also probing the academic heights. She and these two students began to train for SAT and ACT exams that even now, as students entering Grade 11, they will not actually take until the end of this academic year. Thus, they know full well what to expect, and their brains are full of skill and knowledge sets that maximize their chances for outstanding performances on these tests.

By the end of her Grade 10 academic year, Monique was distinguishing herself as a student soaring even above the academic eminences of her talented session mates. She consistently conjoined high intelligence and years of training under my direction in math, reading, and subjects across a rich liberal arts curriculum with meticulous habits of academic study and personal discipline. Thus it was that Monique earned designation at the 8th Annual New Salem Educational Initiative Banquet as the best student of my (to date) four decades-long career.

And thus comes the special occurrence of August 4, 2013.  Monique has agreed to weekly one-on-one tutorials, to be held every Sunday from 5:00 until 7:00 PM, in which she will train with me toward becoming the best student in the state of Minnesota.   Monique will joyously and rigorously train at the university level in the skill and knowledge sets pertinent to math, literature, economics, psychology, history, government, fine arts and the natural sciences. When I feel that she would benefit from professorial expertise that ranges into the third and fourth years of college, I will arrange for her to meet with professors in advancement to that level of knowledge mastery.

Monique Taylor-Myers, on the cusp of her Grade 11 academic year, has at this point mastered algebra, geometry, and much of trigonometry. She has read, line by line, accompanied with my careful explanations, the Shakespearean plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, King Lear, and Twelfth Night.  Monique has for three summers running traveled with me and others from among my most advanced students to see most of these plays at the Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona.

In weekly academic sessions with me, Monique has in recent years studied economic topics pertinent to such matters as national debt and deficit, the stock market (understanding the vagaries of Dow Jones, Standard and Poor’s, and Nasdaq), the Federal Reserve, minimum wage, economic quarters and how these relate to recession and depression. She knows the difference between Shi’ites and Sunnis, she understands the movements of Al Qaida and the Taliban, she knows the social background that gave rise the vicious attack on the courageous Pakistani girl, Malala Yousafzai.  Monique has explored in depth articles from major journals on topics ranging from the electoral college; to the nature of asteroids, meteoroids, meteorites, meteors, and comets; to forms of domestic violence from the perspectives of psychology and law; and many more.

This is a great deal of academic training for a young woman entering her Grade 11 year at school. And now she aspires to the very summit of academic achievement in the state of Minnesota.  Monique Taylor-Myers is dwelling near the apogee of the intellectual heights that I envision for all of my students. The stunning success of Monique Taylor-Myers demonstrates clearly what can be accomplished as a result of the academic weight and ballast acquired when admirable qualities of personality and intelligence are given full rein in a program of highest expectations and excellence of training.

Monique Taylor-Myers is at the pinnacle of the aspirations that I have for all of my students, all of whom face economic challenges and issues pertinent to life circumstance. She demonstrates the possible. She augurs the future. Her personal qualities and those measures that have given rise to her accomplishments are cause for great celebration.

And, to be sure, she and I will be celebrating at 5:00 PM on Sunday, 4 August 2013, as we begin the most amazing chapter yet in the book of achievement that Monique Taylor-Myers has composed for herself as the most superlative student in the New Salem Educational Initiative.