She Wants Kids to Play Hooky—for CreditBy Sally Moore
Growing up in Downer's Grove, Ill., Sharlene Hirsch often played hooky from high school to write pieces for her local newspaper, or dream up plays or practice gourmet cooking along with a TV show.
"Each time I had to go back to high school," she recalls, "I was angry and resentful that the things I was learning and creating outside school seemed to have more meaning and value for me than my courses. To me the real world was beyond the classroom."
This month Sharlene Hirsch—now a Ph.D. from Harvard—can review with some pride the accomplishments of a year spent helping young people across the country discover their own "real worlds" in a unique educational experiment.
At 34, the modishly dressed Dr. Hirsch is the sole creator and director of Executive High School Internships, a nationwide program which enables talented and restless high school students to get out of the classroom for a semester and into real jobs. There they can discover for themselves the demands and rewards of careers in medicine, law enforcement or communications under actual day-to-day working conditions.
Sharlene has had some first-hand experience with internships. After graduation from the University of Illinois (magna cum laude), a brief stint as a high school teacher and then graduate school, Sharlene went to Washington on a Ford Foundation grant. As staff director of a congressional subcommittee on education, she conceived the idea of trying out internships on kids usually thought too young to benefit from them. After Washington, she became Director of Educational Development for New York City and began her on-the-job program with 25 high school students.
This year, with the aid of almost half a million dollars, most of it from the Rockefeller Foundation, 1,300 students in 12 cities across the country were able both to observe and perform useful tasks in government agencies, business and the arts. Interns receive no pay but get full academic credit for their service. Both employers and students say the program is an overwhelming success. In one city, Frederick, Md., where the photographs on these pages were taken, Superintendent of Schools John Carnochan gives full credit to Dr. Hirsch: "It has succeeded because of Sharlene: her drive, enthusiasm, and energy."
The program has demanded even more from her. Partly because she spends 80 percent of each month traveling and visiting students, her marriage to a business executive fell apart. Talking of her husband, not without a certain regret, Dr. Hirsch says, "He wanted normal things, a home and children. But I had this burning idea in my head. I had to choose—now everyone I date has some relation to my work." So successful is that work that the program will expand to 3,000 interns in 24 cities next fall. Now Dr. Hirsch, who lives in Manhattan, can even afford to relax a little. This summer she intends to eat a lot of Mexican food, listen to jazz, and get away to Latin America for a month. It's her first vacation since she got the idea of introducing high school kids to the "real world."
Monday, April 8, 2013
Sharlene Pearlman Hirsch is One in a Million!
I found the following article in the June 24, 1974, issue of People Magazine. I can't tell you how proud I am, having grown up with Sharlene. She is astounding! Just a note: this was the only pic I could find of Sharlene; it's from printing archives, therefore the printing instructions on it. Regardless, I still think she looks great!
She Wants Kids to Play Hooky—for CreditBy Sally Moore
Growing up in Downer's Grove, Ill., Sharlene Hirsch often played hooky from high school to write pieces for her local newspaper, or dream up plays or practice gourmet cooking along with a TV show.
"Each time I had to go back to high school," she recalls, "I was angry and resentful that the things I was learning and creating outside school seemed to have more meaning and value for me than my courses. To me the real world was beyond the classroom."
This month Sharlene Hirsch—now a Ph.D. from Harvard—can review with some pride the accomplishments of a year spent helping young people across the country discover their own "real worlds" in a unique educational experiment.
At 34, the modishly dressed Dr. Hirsch is the sole creator and director of Executive High School Internships, a nationwide program which enables talented and restless high school students to get out of the classroom for a semester and into real jobs. There they can discover for themselves the demands and rewards of careers in medicine, law enforcement or communications under actual day-to-day working conditions.
Sharlene has had some first-hand experience with internships. After graduation from the University of Illinois (magna cum laude), a brief stint as a high school teacher and then graduate school, Sharlene went to Washington on a Ford Foundation grant. As staff director of a congressional subcommittee on education, she conceived the idea of trying out internships on kids usually thought too young to benefit from them. After Washington, she became Director of Educational Development for New York City and began her on-the-job program with 25 high school students.
This year, with the aid of almost half a million dollars, most of it from the Rockefeller Foundation, 1,300 students in 12 cities across the country were able both to observe and perform useful tasks in government agencies, business and the arts. Interns receive no pay but get full academic credit for their service. Both employers and students say the program is an overwhelming success. In one city, Frederick, Md., where the photographs on these pages were taken, Superintendent of Schools John Carnochan gives full credit to Dr. Hirsch: "It has succeeded because of Sharlene: her drive, enthusiasm, and energy."
The program has demanded even more from her. Partly because she spends 80 percent of each month traveling and visiting students, her marriage to a business executive fell apart. Talking of her husband, not without a certain regret, Dr. Hirsch says, "He wanted normal things, a home and children. But I had this burning idea in my head. I had to choose—now everyone I date has some relation to my work." So successful is that work that the program will expand to 3,000 interns in 24 cities next fall. Now Dr. Hirsch, who lives in Manhattan, can even afford to relax a little. This summer she intends to eat a lot of Mexican food, listen to jazz, and get away to Latin America for a month. It's her first vacation since she got the idea of introducing high school kids to the "real world."
She Wants Kids to Play Hooky—for CreditBy Sally Moore
Growing up in Downer's Grove, Ill., Sharlene Hirsch often played hooky from high school to write pieces for her local newspaper, or dream up plays or practice gourmet cooking along with a TV show.
"Each time I had to go back to high school," she recalls, "I was angry and resentful that the things I was learning and creating outside school seemed to have more meaning and value for me than my courses. To me the real world was beyond the classroom."
This month Sharlene Hirsch—now a Ph.D. from Harvard—can review with some pride the accomplishments of a year spent helping young people across the country discover their own "real worlds" in a unique educational experiment.
At 34, the modishly dressed Dr. Hirsch is the sole creator and director of Executive High School Internships, a nationwide program which enables talented and restless high school students to get out of the classroom for a semester and into real jobs. There they can discover for themselves the demands and rewards of careers in medicine, law enforcement or communications under actual day-to-day working conditions.
Sharlene has had some first-hand experience with internships. After graduation from the University of Illinois (magna cum laude), a brief stint as a high school teacher and then graduate school, Sharlene went to Washington on a Ford Foundation grant. As staff director of a congressional subcommittee on education, she conceived the idea of trying out internships on kids usually thought too young to benefit from them. After Washington, she became Director of Educational Development for New York City and began her on-the-job program with 25 high school students.
This year, with the aid of almost half a million dollars, most of it from the Rockefeller Foundation, 1,300 students in 12 cities across the country were able both to observe and perform useful tasks in government agencies, business and the arts. Interns receive no pay but get full academic credit for their service. Both employers and students say the program is an overwhelming success. In one city, Frederick, Md., where the photographs on these pages were taken, Superintendent of Schools John Carnochan gives full credit to Dr. Hirsch: "It has succeeded because of Sharlene: her drive, enthusiasm, and energy."
The program has demanded even more from her. Partly because she spends 80 percent of each month traveling and visiting students, her marriage to a business executive fell apart. Talking of her husband, not without a certain regret, Dr. Hirsch says, "He wanted normal things, a home and children. But I had this burning idea in my head. I had to choose—now everyone I date has some relation to my work." So successful is that work that the program will expand to 3,000 interns in 24 cities next fall. Now Dr. Hirsch, who lives in Manhattan, can even afford to relax a little. This summer she intends to eat a lot of Mexican food, listen to jazz, and get away to Latin America for a month. It's her first vacation since she got the idea of introducing high school kids to the "real world."
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