(7 of 9)
Along the way, Huan found some cherished mentors at school and at church. They helped guide her, particularly when she faced a personal tragedy. Last fall she was eagerly awaiting her father's first visit to the U.S. when he died in a freak accident. Huan's father was a sound engineer by profession, and he and his daughter shared a passion for music. After his death, however, music filled her with pain. "Music is such an intimate thing," says Huan. "The memories it brought up made me sad. So I thought I had to get away from music." Her choral teacher, Ross Heise, interceded. "We hugged and cried together," he recalls. "I told her you can't run away from your problems. You have to embrace them to make you a better, deeper person." Huan regained her balance because of his help and because, she says, "I have love from all over."
Most outstanding students have an outstanding teacher lurking somewhere in their past, a teacher who somehow connected with them. Karen Arnold found this was true of the valedictorians she studied. Principals and parents confirm it. "If you talk with kids, they will tell you about someone who has captured their imagination--gotten hold of them emotionally and intellectually," says Fred Ginocchio, principal of Madison Middle School in Appleton, Wis. He remembers his own third-grade teacher making this kind of breakthrough for him, by reading the autobiography of Black Hawk to the class. "I can picture her still," he recalls. "I was totally taken in. I was a kid who was on the playground all the time. After she read it, I checked it out, and it was the first book I read."
A 1997 study at Columbia University's Teachers College looked at the lives of 100 prominent Americans, ages 40 to 55, and found that those who had come from disadvantaged backgrounds were especially likely to cite the influence of a mentor as a key to their success. Sometimes a caring teacher served "as a parent substitute," says Charles Harrington, who co-directed the study. Sometimes the teacher provided an affirming "turnaround moment," for example, by standing up for a child and saying, "Henry wouldn't lie." That moment of validation, he notes, "transforms Henry."
THE RULES ON HOMEWORK
Structurally, Donny Williams' family sounds like a mess. His mom Darlene had her first child while still in high school. Seven years later, she met and married Donny's father; the marriage lasted 11 years. Donny, now 11, lives in a Randallstown, Md., town house with his mother, his half sister Dawn, 25, and Dawn's child Crystal, 7. Five years ago, the family also took in Donny's cousin Garland, 17, who was struggling with family problems.
Complicated and confusing? Yes. But everyone is thriving. Donny graduated from Winand Elementary School in June and received the Principal's Award, one of the school's highest honors. Other credits: he was acting president of the student government, most valuable player in his basketball league, a Little League star and an accomplished saxophone player. Teachers describe Donny as a natural leader who lights up a room with his charm. His success, says assistant principal Judi Callanan Devlin, "is due to his innate ability and his work ethic--and then his mother is very clear about her expectations for him."