CHARLES FOX / Staff
President Obama's message hit home.
Monica Yant Kinney: In Camden, Obama connects
It isn't every day that the leader of the Free World says America's future depends on your doing your geometry homework. But that's what Barack Obama said yesterday, and at LEAP Academy in Camden, students seemed to enjoy the presidential pep talk.
They knew Obama was raised by a single mother of modest means. But until the speech, few students grasped their shared struggles. After all, how many teenagers think they have anything in common with the president?
"He came from humble beginnings, but he's not a victim," noted Jonathan Gonzalez, a 17-year-old senior from North Camden. "I liked that he said being successful is hard. It's not easy, but it's possible."
So much for the socialist indoctrination promised by conservative commentators ranting that Obama would poison children's minds. The most controversial part of the back-to-school speech was how Republican the Democrat sounded pushing personal responsibility.
"At the end of the day, the circumstances of your life - what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home - that's no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude," Obama told the nation's young people.
"That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not trying."
Trailblazers wearing blazers
LEAP opened in 1997 as one of the inaugural charter schools in New Jersey. For the past five years, 100 percent of graduating seniors have gone on to college - this, in a town where nearly half of all children live in poverty and less than 40 percent finish high school.
In their navy blazers, maroon vests, and ties, LEAP students dress for success. In class - eight-hour school days, 200 days a year - they learn to envision futures previously thought impossible.
"I want to study law at Harvard," declared 16-year-old senior Sandilee Ramos. "My parents didn't go to college. But I know I'm going to college. I'm determined."
As the students listened to the 18-minute speech, they were asked to jot down "key points you agree with" and "key points you have questions about."
For a while, no one wrote anything. Pens started scribbling wildly when Obama talked about learning from failure without letting it define you.
"If you get in trouble, that doesn't mean you're a troublemaker; it means you need to try harder to behave," he said. "If you get a bad grade, that doesn't mean you're stupid; it just means you need to spend more time studying."
That presidential plea Princess Igwe could not ignore.
"Sometimes I feel like giving up," admitted the 15-year-old sophomore with the regal name. "But he didn't give up. Now look at him."
Keep preaching, says the choir
OK, so maybe Obama was preaching to the choir at a school with so many motivated students. But even strivers can use a kick in the pants.
"I liked how he talked about the value of education, of understanding hardship and dilemmas," said Mariah Castillo, a 17-year-old senior and would-be nurse already taking biology at Rowan University. "People have problems all around. It's not just in Camden."
We meet in the school's precollege office. Nearly an hour after the president's speech, Castillo could still quote the line that stuck in her mind: "Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up."
Castillo mentioned that she's the middle child in a family of eight. Two older siblings and her mother started college, but none finished.
"I will," she said, confidently.
Castillo has brothers and sisters in the lower grades at LEAP, and she intends to set an example. What Obama told her, she tells them. It's really quite simple:
"You've got to take school seriously."
Contact Monica Yant Kinney at 215-854-4670 or myant@phillynews.com. Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/yantkinney.
