It’s not easy being green

Julian Wilkes is one of 26 students nationwide named a Caroline D. Bradley Scholar, and he’s already thinking about how he can help his generation find its way forward.

For eighth-grader Julian Wilkes, being different isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

It can mean spending a Saturday morning learning Shakespeare, an afternoon swimming or playing handball, and a Sunday working as a teaching assistant at his synagogue. It can mean inventing a language with its own grammatical structures, writing futuristic stories, or thinking about how to explain environmental problems to people in a world increasingly crowded with misinformation. And now, it also means being one of just 26 middle school students nationwide selected as a Caroline D. Bradley Scholar for the Class of 2031.

The prestigious scholarship, awarded by the Institute for Educational Advancement (IEA), provides a four-year, need-blind scholarship to a school of the student’s choice. The program is designed to recognize highly gifted students and help them find educational environments where their abilities, interests and individual ways of thinking can flourish. For Julian, a student at Sierra Madre Middle School, earning the scholarship was exciting, but getting there was no small undertaking.

“The application process was quite rigorous,” Julian said. “It took a considerable amount of time.” That time had to be carved out of an already remarkably full schedule. Julian studies French with a tutor and takes acting classes and workshops. He appeared in A Noise Withing’s Pasadena production of A Christmas Carol and attended the theater company’s Shakespeare summer camp. On Saturdays, he travels to North Hollywood for classes at The Young Actors Studio, where he studies acting technique, improvisation, on-camera work and scene study.

He swims. He plays handball. And at Temple Sinai of Glendale, he works as a teaching assistant. It was Temple Sinai Rabbi Rick Schechter who nominated Julian for the Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship. Julian’s mentor, Dr. Dylan Rupel, also nominated him. Rupel knows Julian through Pasadena Unified School District’s Math Academy, a distinctive program for middle and high school students with an enthusiasm and aptitude for mathematics.

Math Academy was founded on a deceptively simple premise: Raise the bar high enough, and students will reach it. Sandy Durell Roberts, co-founder and director of Math Academy, said the program isn’t about identifying only mathematical prodigies.

Julian doesn’t spend every waking hour studying.

“You don’t have to be a prodigy to be a part of Math Academy,” Roberts said. “What we do at Math Academy is harness the enthusiasm and the talent using the pedagogy and methodology of the academy. That is what really propels them.”

Julian has embraced that challenge. But he has also noticed something about the students coming through the program that concerns him. The current middle school cohort consists of just three girls and seventeen boys. For Julian, that imbalance raises a question about who feels encouraged, or sees themselves as belonging in advanced mathematics. It is one of the many questions that seem to interest him beyond simply getting the right answer.

For all the academic accomplishments, Julian doesn’t spend every waking hour studying. He likes Minecraft. He likes hanging out with friends. And he spends time thinking about some of the problems his generation will inherit.

“I’m really interested in environmental stuff,” he said. “I would love to find some ways to communicate, to get people to understand some of these world problems without so much misinformation.” That combination- curiosity, imagination and a desire to communicate, may be one of Julian’s most distinguishing qualities. It also helps explain why one of the questions on his Caroline D. Bradley scholarship application resonated with him.

The essay prompt asked applicants to write about their impressions of Kermit the Frog’s song, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” At first glance, it might seem like an unusual question for a prestigious scholarship for academically gifted students. For Julian, however, there was plenty to think about. Being green, Kermit sings, means being different. It can mean feeling overlooked or wishing, at least for a moment, that you could blend in with everyone else.

He hasn’t decided where he will go to high school.

For a middle school student, that idea isn’t exactly foreign. Middle school can be an uncomfortable time for anyone who feels different, whether because of the way they think, what they are interested in, how they see the world, or simply because they haven’t yet found their people. Julian seems to have found some of his. And rather than trying to become less different, he appears increasingly interested in figuring out what he can do with those differences.

The Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship gives Julian something many gifted students don’t always have: the freedom to choose an educational environment based on what is right for him rather than what is simply available. He hasn’t decided where he will go to high school. Julian and his parents toured several schools on the East Coast, and he was impressed by what he saw. He is also considering schools closer to home, including some where he could continue living with his family.

One school in Ojai particularly intrigues him. The boarding school places a strong emphasis on outdoor education, with frequent trips outdoors and a focus on environmental awareness. Julian has until January to complete his applications. For now, he has time to keep exploring. That may ultimately be the greatest gift of the scholarship- not simply four years of tuition, but the opportunity to find a place where a student can pursue his many interests, ask difficult questions, take intellectual risks and continue becoming the person he wants to be.

Julian, almost 14 years old, doesn’t know yet exactly what he wants to do, where he will go to school, or what kind of problems he will eventually tackle. The world his generation is growing up in is complicated and uncertain. Climate change, misinformation, environmental degradation and social divisions are not easy problems to solve.

But Julian isn’t talking about giving up. He’s talking about communication. About helping people understand. About finding ways to make sense of difficult problems. And perhaps that is a hopeful message hidden inside a song about a little green frog.

It’s not easy being different. But with the right encouragement, a place to belong, and the freedom to follow your curiosity, being different can become something else entirely- not a reason to hide, but a reason to imagine what might be possible.