The Delphian School Receives Humanitarian Award from Applied Scholastics
On July 29th 2007, at the annual Educators' Conference held on the main campus of
Applied Scholastics International in St. Louis, Missouri, the Delphian School received
the Applied Scholastics Humanitarian Award. Applied Scholastics International (APS
Int.) is a non-profit, public-benefit organization working to provide educational
assistance and technology in over 60 countries around the world. Mrs. Bennetta Slaughter,
Chief Executive Officer of APS Int., presented this award to Delphian's headmistress
for the school's "continued commitment and dedication to helping others."
In September of 2006, Applied Scholastics International invited the Delphian School
of Sheridan, Oregon, to participate in a year-long tutoring project that it was
running in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The arrangement was that every two weeks during
the 2006-2007 school year, the Delphian School would send a group of four high school
students to help tutor 150 eighth graders in a Baton Rouge middle school to improve
their literacy and numeracy.
The mission of Applied Scholastics is to provide effective education services and
materials that help people learn how to learn and thereby work effectively to achieve
their full potential. In cities and townships around the world, Applied Scholastics
helps both children and adults learn how to learn, utilizing proven learning methods,
known as Study Technology, developed by author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard.
Under the direction of Applied Scholastics faculty, Delphian students employed these
same study methods to help improve the quality of learning for those eighth graders
involved in the project.
For some years, students from the Delphian School have done volunteer tutoring in
elementary and middle schools in Sheridan and McMinnville, Oregon. Small groups
of students have also taken part in more distant tutoring programs located in Massachusetts
and Mississippi; however this is the first time that Delphian School students have
been involved in a program of this magnitude. This project involved considerable
cooperation from staff, students and parents alike, and over the course of the academic
year, a total of 62 Delphian students took part. They began by providing a course
in the study methods, and continued with personalized help in subjects that covered
the full breadth of the middle school curriculum.
Alex Jessup, a Delphian School senior from Texas, said of his time in Baton Rouge,
"The few weeks I spent there were amazing. I became much more certain of the benefits
of Study Technology, which we use here at Delphi in educating people, when I saw
the results I was able to achieve with it. I also discovered I have a passion for
helping others; I never thought I would get such satisfaction from a day's work."
Delphian's Headmistress, Rosemary Didear, was pleased to accept the Humanitarian
award on behalf of the school. "The students worked hard," she said, "and it was
an opportunity for them to see that they could really make a difference in the lives
of others. I know this was an experience they will take with them for the rest of
their lives."