New Haven Independent

The two local high-schoolers were among the first class of graduates from an eight-week Saturday Youth Academy at the Dixwell Avenue branch.

Back in January, 13 middle and high school age kids and their parents signed a contract with the library to come, without fail, for eight early Saturday morning sessions on life skills and career training.

They studied and practiced subjects such as workplace readiness, financial literacy, and how to explore careers and higher education.

They also learned and practiced the nuts and bolts: how to write a resume (chronologically or organized by job goal or objective); how to make eye contact during an interview and not fidget with your hands; how to use the Internet for college and job searches, and how to socialize in a room full of strangers, and to network.

“In other words,” said Arden Santana (on left in the the photo, with branch librarian Diane Brown-Petteway), one of the program’s facilitators, “both job skills and social development skills that they might need to move ahead in their careers in school and in life.”

Selma Tyson and Dane Nixon both said they got a lot out of the weekend sessions. Tyson, who’s headed for Johnson and Wales College in Rhode Island for a career in business management, said she found it especially helpful to learn how to answer the “name one of your weaknesses” job-interview question.

The wrong answer? To say you have none! The right answer is to have prepared something in advance, to cite it but then to add, without being defensive, that you’re working on it and then to get back to your strengths, which will benefit the company.

“I also learned,” said Tyson, “that there are certain questions interviewers are not allowed to ask you, like are you married? You don’t want to be aggressive, but you have to find a nice way around not answering it.”

Nixon said one of the lessons he valued most from the sessions was how to make eye contact with people, and how to communicate in a room crowded with others. “I’m going to spend a year at Gateway,” he said, “and then go to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.”

In addition to Santana, who is a full-time teacher at the Ross/Woodward School, other teachers in the academy include librarians Joi Sorenson and Aisha Banks and role models like James Pearson.

As each came up to receive his or her diploma, the teachers offered detailed praise. To Tyson, Arden Santana said, “You are wonderfully confident, you will fit beautifully into business management, you will arrive wherever you want to go.”

To another student, Chadran Smith, she said, “We all admire your ability to express yourself clearly and confidently through everything you do.”

And to this young man, Aisha Banks said, affectionately, “and you, James, are the class clown of the academy. Oh, no. I didn’t phrase that quite right. You are our intellectual jester.”

Banks, who worked with the older college-bound kids, said that funding she received from a grant from the SBM Foundation of Manchester, Connecticut, helped provide each of the kids with a thumb or flash drive to store their college and job data, binders, and a curriculum.

Other funders of the Saturday Youth Academy include the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and the Carolyn Foundation.

In addition to those cited, the other graduates include: Patrick Bromell, Shavonda Myers, Jeremiah Pearson, Terri Pearson, Dondre Reeves, Chris Seals, Kristopher Smalls, Lloyd Streater, and Sharrad Wells.

The next academy class is going to be seated for eight sessions beginning in April. It’s on a first-come, first-served basis. This is a hands-on, success-oriented program run by professionals who take seriously their function not only as teachers but role models; they say they will be there for kids to come back for more guidance long after they graduate.

For those interested in enhancing college and job prep and the social skills that are part of that, the contact is librarian Diane Pettaway at the Stetson Library; 946-8119.