YOUTH NOW
How to Turn Teenagers Into World-Class Scientists
Andy Bramante coaches his students through projects most professionals would never dream of. Here’s his secret.
Just like any other school, the entrance hall in Greenwich High is draped with banners and studded with trophies celebrating its students’ triumphs. Only here, the biggest wins come not from athletic competitions, but from the statewide and national science fairs that Greenwich High has come to dominate — the Google Science Fair, the Regeneron Science Talent Search, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and more.
How they’ve done it is now the subject of The Class, a book out this month by journalist Heather Won Tesoriero. Although the students are uniquely impressive, the star of the story is their teacher, Andy Bramante, who runs the independent study–style research class behind all these wins. The son of a single mother in the Bronx, Bramante pumped gas, worked in a tow yard, got a free ride to Fordham, and ended up in a succession of well-paying chemistry industry jobs — but he gave it all up to teach. (“Are you fucking crazy?” one of his co-workers asked him when he shared his decision.)
