The Riverview Towers, a privately owned row of housing projects, looms over Paterson Public School 28, where the Paterson Academy for the Gifted and Talented is located in Paterson, N.J. The school is located in one of the city’s most crime-ridden and impoverished neighborhoods. –Mark Abramson for Education Week
On assignment for Education Week, photographer Mark Abramson writes about the challenges and rewards of photographing a school for gifted and talented youth in economically depressed Paterson, N.J.
I was assigned by Education Week to photograph a story about the Paterson Academy for the Gifted and Talented, a school for advanced students grades 2-8 in Paterson, N.J. The hook of the story? The school is located in one of the most crime-ridden and impoverished neighborhoods in the city, and the kids who attend the school are from all different backgrounds and socio-economic classes. I had just one day to complete this assignment. Needless to say, I was a bit nervous. I wanted to do the best job I could to represent the school, and also to show the neighborhood in a respectful light. From the stories I was hearing, the neighborhood, Ward 1 (also nicknamed by some as “down the hill”), has received a lot of negative attention due to the high crime rate and drug activities occurring within that area.
Tai D. Matthews, a humanities teacher at the Paterson Academy for the Gifted and Talented, was a student in the district herself and is incredibly passionate about the challenges of finding and supporting gifted students from poor and minority backgrounds. Here, she teaches a lesson on Ancient Greece in her 6th grade social studies class. –-Mark Abramson for Education Week
Elainie Alfonso, right, a 6th grader in the Paterson Academy for the Gifted and Talented, works on solving math problems in class with her fellow students. –Mark Abramson for Education Week
Students pose in a group portrait for their chess club. –Mark Abramson for Education Week
Sixth graders work at rope-climbing during a gym class. –Mark Abramson for Education Week
Sixth grader Chyenne Roberts takes a break from gym class at the gifted and-talented school. “At my old school, I was always the first one finished. [Here,] the work was challenging; you had to really sit and think about it.” –Mark Abramson for Education Week
Elainie Alfonso, a 6th grader at the Paterson Academy for the Gifted and Talented, says she’s glad to finally have friends “whose brains work like mine.” –Mark Abramson for Education Week
Daeshon “Scotty” Moore, a basketball coach in Paterson at P.S. 4, and a mentor to kids in the neighborhood, shoots some hoops in a basketball court across the street from P.S. 28. Deashon is from the neighborhood and knows it really well. –Mark Abramson for Education Week
Ava Moore, 5, eats ice cream on a basketball court across the street from P.S. 28. –Mark Abramson for Education Week
Residents from the neighborhood, nicknamed as “down the hill,” hang out at a makeshift court behind P.S. 28, in Paterson. This neighborhood is considered to be one of Paterson’s most crime-ridden and impoverished in the city. –Mark Abramson for Education Week
From up above at the Garret Mountain Reservation, the city of Paterson, N.J. can be seen in the distance. –Mark Abramson for Education Week