Students win awards in essay contest
Anna Boggess, a senior at Emma Willard School, won the first place award of $1,000 in the Albany-tula Alliance’s 2019 Student Essay Contest.
Her essay, along with those from two other high school students, was selected from a competitive selection of 1,500-word pieces that expand upon a quote by the late South African president Nelson Mandela: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, it goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”
Being a Russian-american, Boggess said she had fun researching the relationship the U.S. has with Russia and digging into Mandela’s belief in the importance of language. Boggess researched academic articles describing the ‘foreign language effect’ and how better decisions were made when using a second language instead of a first.
Amelia Colafati, an Albany High School junior, won the second place award of $500. Colafati spent her elementary years in a dual-language program in English and Spanish. She touched on the reasoning and importance of learning foreign languages and benefits of bilingualism in international exchange and diplomacy.
Adam Aleksic, an Albany High School senior, won the third place award of $250. Aleksic said that if we do as Mandela urges, shortcomings in current foreign language education practices can be improved. Aleksic won third place in 2017 and first place in 2018.
Essay writers were recognized at the Fort Orange Club by guests from the Russian Consulate in New York City, Albany City Treasurer Darius Shahinfar, City Auditor Susan Rizzo, representing the county executive’s office, and Katy Dunn, representing U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko.