This article was originally published in the Winter 2024 issue of the GFS Bulletin.

A career as an investment banker chasing down deals in Manhattan feels worlds away from that of a middle school math teacher. But for Matthew Greenawalt, the difference fit inside just one summer.

Twenty years ago, the GFS Class of 2002 graduate was enrolled at Williams College in Massachusetts, his eyes set on a future in finance. But something was bouncing around in the back of his head: an assembly during his junior year at GFS, where a speaker presented on Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia, a program the school hosted that paired college-aged teaching fellows with local public school students for intensive tutoring.

Greenawalt was inspired to give Breakthrough a shot. He signed up as a summer teaching fellow not quite knowing what to expect, and in turn found a new calling.

“I’d never been so challenged in my life,” Greenawalt says, comparing it favorably to more humdrum internships he experienced in finance. “I was so exhausted, but I’d found my passion: working with kids.”

 

Now, Greenawalt is a GFS Middle School math teacher, and also helps to lead Breakthrough as a Dean of Faculty, working in close partnership with fellow Dean of Faculty, Ceora Wearing-Moore, who is co-chair of the English Department in GFS’ Middle School. 

Each year, about 175 local middle schoolers from public, charter, and parochial schools enroll in Breakthrough. For six weeks in the summer and every Saturday during the school year, these Scholars come to GFS to meet with Teaching Fellows—college students who are trained and overseen by school faculty—to reinforce their learning in core subjects and electives.

The tuition-free program is one of 25 affiliates of the national Breakthrough Collaborative, a nonprofit that aims to prepare traditionally underrepresented students for higher education. The Philadelphia chapter of Breakthrough was launched in 1995 and originally called Summerbridge, by a group of educators, including Julie Friedberg ’89, Cheryl Wade, and Dick Wade, former head of Germantown Friends School. 

GFS housed the nonprofit until 2020, when Breakthrough became a subsidiary of Germantown Friends School. This new arrangement has yielded dividends across the organization, with deep engagement from the GFS community. Experienced GFS faculty provide coaching to help Teaching Fellows learn the craft. GFS students work with Breakthrough students, forging lasting bonds. The school’s facilities—classrooms, auditoriums, and lounges—allow space where programming and community can thrive. And GFS offers a full suite of operational support. Importantly, Breakthrough has continued to be responsible for raising funds to support its annual budget, and has done so with the generosity of many longtime funders, while also attracting new support each year.

 

Breakthrough is a crucial component of GFS’ commitment to ongoing support of community education, a pillar of the Picture This campaign. And for those who see it firsthand, it is often transformational. Wearing-Moore, who grew up in West Philadelphia and attended both public and private schools, says she connects with the lived experiences of many students who attend. After obtaining an undergrad degree in English from Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina, Wearing-Moore intended to be a writer. But like Greenawalt, she found her way to education and arrived at GFS in 2019. An opportunity to lead Breakthrough helped her find her footing at the school.

“They have different needs than most students at GFS,” Wearing-Moore says of Breakthrough Scholars. “The rapport you build is different because you’re serving a need that goes a little deeper than education. Sometimes they come to feel seen, to feel loved, to get some type of positive interaction.”

For the Scholars, the importance of engaging with fellows who often look like them and come from similar backgrounds cannot be overstated, Wearing-Moore says.

“It allows these kids to have this ‘near-peer’ experience where they get to interact with college students. It makes some of them want to go to college,” she adds. “The Fellows are still doing TikToks, they know the lingo, and it’s just a wonderful experience to see how at ease the kids feel with them.”

 

Students often leave with a new sense of educational opportunity. Wearing-Moore says it has been rewarding to see several Breakthrough students go on to enroll at Germantown Friends. Greenawalt adds that because GFS faculty are familiar with the public school landscape in Philadelphia and the importance of earlier educational interventions, they have helped steer the program’s focus toward the middle school level.

“The goal is getting kids into prestigious high schools in the Philadelphia area, whether that’s Germantown Friends, or Central High School, or Cristo Rey,” Greenawalt says. “Whatever a kid’s ideal partnership may be, we feel that fifth grade is when you have to really start thinking about that.”

 

Another ingredient of the program’s success is the Teaching Fellows, and the work that GFS staff do to mentor and prepare them. Each year, Breakthrough’s Project Manager Sakina Parks works to onboard dozens of college-aged Teaching Fellows from all over the country, with an emphasis on those enrolled at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Fellows who come for Breakthrough’s summer program receive a stipend and housing at Temple and St. Joseph’s Universities, plus two weeks of immersive teacher training from GFS Middle School faculty that covers lesson planning, classroom management, and other essential skills. Once the summer session is underway, the Teaching Fellows are expected to lead their own classrooms, with GFS staff standing by in support roles. 

Iliana Correa, a master’s student at the University of Pennsylvania who is pursuing a degree in science education, received her first classroom experience as a Breakthrough Fellow at GFS in the summer of 2022. She can attest that it was intense leading a room of middle schoolers for the first time; her biggest takeaway was the need to be “quick on your feet.”

She credits GFS staff for their training and support, and particularly appreciated the creative freedom fellows were given. During one unit on water conservation, her classroom learned that GFS collects rainwater to use for toilet flushing in some of its buildings. Together, they decided on an impromptu mini-field trip to see it in action in the building next door, sparking both wonder for the students and a realization for Correa about how to best reach kids through experiential and hands-on learning.

“My favorite thing to do is build activities for my students,” Correa says. “And Breakthrough is where I found my love for it."

Now, Correa dreams of getting a PhD in curriculum design. Hers is another life transformed by Breakthrough.

- by Kyle Bagenstose