Jessica Wible likes to think on her feet.
That’s why her taste in track runs toward the 3,200-meter distance. She enjoys having the time to review a strategy and then execute it.
It’s all about adjustments, and the St. Ignatius senior is as flexible as a politician at a press conference. When you move five times before you’re old enough to drive, that becomes a survival skill.
“The moving helped me adapt a lot,” said Wible, whose father, Art, is a newspaper executive. “I’ve never been a shy kid; I’ve learned to take the initiative.”
The result is a resume only slightly less lengthy than “War and Peace.” Students Against Driving Drunk, Ignatians Motivated for Racial Unity, retreat leader, study abroad, helping to repair a poor family’s home in Kentucky, to list just a few entries. Add that to a 4.11 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale, and it’s little wonder Wible has been named to the Illinois High School Association’s All-State Academic Team.
But the activity that makes this standout stand out is the tutoring she does at the Montefiore Special School, as tough a place to teach as you’ll find in the Chicago Public School system. Montefiore is on the Near Southwest Side, a mile from St. Ignatius, but it might as well be on the other side of the Grand Canyon.
The 69-year-old special-education school serves 170 boys, mostly 11 to 14 years old, who are among the most seriously emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children in the city. They lack self-control, have difficulty forming relationships and coping with authority and often are aggressive.
But they can learn, and Wible is one of nine St. Ignatius students who come twice a week for a total of about three hours to help as part of a 15-year-old peer tutoring program between the schools.
For St. Ignatius students, it’s part of a senior urban studies class, so Wible gets credit for it. But students get to list preferences among the sites used for the class, and she made Montefiore her No. 1 choice.
“I thought it would really test my personality,” said Wible, who also helps out twice a week in a private-school pre-kindergarten class for the yearlong course. “I wanted to see if I could handle it.”
Montefiore students like to find that out themselves, so tutors field their share of interesting comments their first few weeks there, including some that can’t be repeated here.
“You hear things that test you, a lot I’ve never heard before,” said Wible, acknowledging she wondered at first whether she’d make it. “They might ask for your phone number, where you live, where can they meet you after school.
“It’s definitely kind of tough. You have to ignore it and show you’re not intimidated. That’s the only way they respect you.”
As always, the 5-foot-2-inch, 100-pound Wible adjusted, even the first time a fight broke out in her classroom.
“She’s a lot tougher than she looks,” said St. Ignatius director of community services Peggy Desmond, who teaches the urban studies course.
In Room 214, where she assists special-education teacher Barbara Young, Wible does everything from teaching fractions to helping a student with a job application.
“She does everything for us,” one student said Thursday while his classmates nodded in agreement.
“She’s the best (peer tutor) I’ve had because she’s no-nonsense,” Young said. “They don’t play around with her; they know she’s here to help them.”
Both sides gain in the peer tutor program. Montefiore students, most of whom see schoolwork as worthless for themselves, become exposed to teenagers for whom education does work. St. Ignatius students move beyond their stereotypical views of minority adolescents, and some decide to seek careers in education.
Wible’s Montefiore experience has increased her desire to work with children, perhaps after studying sociology or becoming a lawyer.
“It has taught me a lot about my potential working with kids,” she said, “how persistent you have to be to get through.”
Persistence also describes her approach to running. In the last year, Wible has cut her 3,200-meter indoor best by almost a minute, giving her a realistic chance to qualify for the state track meet for the first time.
“This is a kid whose physical talent does not come near what she has in terms of heart,” girls track and cross-country coach Bob Burke said. “What she gets from herself comes from inside. It’s all guts.”
Burke sometimes wishes Wible didn’t do so much, remembering, perhaps, the times she ran her cross-country workouts alone at dusk because she had another after-school extracurricular commitment.
“She juggles more balls than anyone I’ve seen,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot more watching her than I’ve taught her in terms of the dedication she puts in a number of areas without cutting anything short.
“She gives way too much to other people. Sometimes I wish she was a little selfish.”
Settling for less, however, is one adjustment Jessica Wible is unlikely to make.
“I’ve always been a very hard worker,” she said. “I like to get things done right.
“If I’m going to do something, I don’t want to do a halfway job.”
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Send e-mail to Barry Temkin at BarTem@aol.com
