PART TWO
When one four-year-old-boy entered the program l found him so disturbed that I didn’t think we could take him. I had never seen a child with such a severe problem. He hit, kicked, spit at, or bit, anyone who came near him. But his teacher did not want to give up on him. She gave him a secured corner of the class room. After noticing he was fond of a red truck she put toys and food in the truck and pushed the truck toward him. I have a wonderful picture of him sitting on her lap smiling, which I took about a year later. A home visit found his aunt who had custody of him, she picked vegetables on a farm. She had no one to look after him and shut him in a closet while she worked, to keep him safe. I felt sure that if that teacher had not insisted on keeping him, he would have ended up in an institution.
The mother first selected as an aide was a 28 years old with 8 children. The four oldest were in special ed classes in school. She couldn’t participate unless we took her toddler. The child wasn’t walking so a crib found. She couldn’t hold her bottle or roll over, and cried all day. I placed the mother as the nurse's assistant, because I didn’t think she would do well in a classroom. But I couldn’t stand listening to the child crying and found a good nursery for her, wondering if there was some kind of inherited retardation in this family.
When I visited the little girl several months later, to my shock she was standing at a low table, putting a puzzle together! A home visit was made. The mother came to the door with a thick leather strap around her neck that was about 6 ft. long. That’s how she apparently controlled all her kids. Once we found a cause of the children's retarded development, we gave the mother more opportunities to learn parenting skills. In the next two years her 4 older kids were retested and put in regular classrooms in school. She eventually bought an old car with the money she made in our program, got her teeth fixed, and got a job. Her kids were all behaving more like those in their age groups.
Visiting with one of the gentle older mothers, who also had 8 kids, I asked if she was planning to have more children. She said, “No, I had a dream that I wouldn’t”. Planned Parenthood was invited to come for two sessions with the mothers and their oldest girls to teach contraceptive methods. I could hear them from my office having a marvelous time.
A talented woman was hired as food service director in the summers. She was a professor of Home Economics at Douglas College and was a marvelous trainer for the 4 mothers placed in the kitchen as cooks. On the first day they learned to use all the big equipment in the school kitchen and served breakfast and lunch to 250 students and staff. I bought 4 rebuilt, table top sewing machines for $10 each, a pile of cloth on sale, and put it all in an empty room next to the kitchen. She then taught them to sew during their breaks and they bought the machines at the end of the summer.
Two black High School drama teachers were hired as classroom teachers. They were very successful with the older kids. One day they announced to all the older kids that they were going on a very long journey, and had kids lay on the floor and close their eyes. They dramatically told the story about their ancestors, who had been kidnapped from their villages in Africa. They were then forced to walk many miles through the jungle in chains, and were held in a prison on a coast. Later they were boarded on ships and were chained to the floor of a lower deck, and endured the long turbulent journey to America.
When they arrived, they were each put on an auction block, often nude, and sold to the highest bidder. Their lives in the south, from then on, were spent working in the fields for very long hours in the hot southern sun. They were often tied to a stake and whipped, and sometimes killed for small infractions. Some women were raped by the owners. Those who survived this inhuman treatment, held their families together the best they could from 1619 to 1865, when the war between the southern states and the northern states ended slavery. Over the next decades after the north won that war, black people were given the right to vote, own property, and get an education.
The drama teachers described how, over the next century, black people became outstanding doctors, educators, scientists, and succeeded in many professions. Some provided moral leadership not only in this country, but in the whole world. However, In spite of this success, distrust and discrimination still plagues our country and diminishes the health of our democracy for everyone. That is the outline of the journey which took a long time, with a lot of detail. As I watched the children laying on the floor, I worried about the effect it was having, It is such a long, grim and painful story of their past. But those two teachers knew what they were doing and afterward, those kids all stood taller with more self-confidence.
In the summer program, a boy who had been one of the original, and had thrown a chair at his teacher, was found, by the eye doctor to have a very serious vision problem. Once found, it was successfully treated. Several years after the program closed, I saw his mother in the super market and she told me that he had done very well in high school, and had been chosen by the famous New York City based Alvin Alley Dance Co. to be a summer intern. That mother became such a good teacher aide that after 5 years in our program, she competed successfully for a job as an aide in a regular school class room.
After Nixon became president, all of the Federal Funds changed to benefit those with “educational” deficits, and our funding disappeared. I went to Washington to see if I could get appointments with Congressmen to convince them that it is much less expensive and more effective to treat problems at an early age. I failed to find anyone interested. Both ETS and a Sociology Professor at Princeton University participated in evaluating the results of our Program.
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This program improved school for everyone in this system over the following years.
You can imagine the chaos and strain those 72 kids had put on that whole school system!
As a result of this program, In the following year there was:
Far less stress on all class room teachers and other staff.
Improved opportunity for attention and learning for all children in classrooms.
A reduced need for special teachers, money saved. ETC.
The problems in schools today are far worse, since prices for food, rent, and health care are so high, many more people are falling into poverty, and then the virus hit! The added stress and violence is so high in schools that many teachers are retiring early and others leaving the profession. In addition it’s harder to find new qualified teachers.
There could be a program like this in every community in the country! You can quickly find the needy preschoolers by identifying their siblings in school who aren’t doing well. It is expensive in the short run, but improves the effectiveness and functioning of the whole system.
It’s time to make “healing” a goal for schools, police departments, and prisons, as well as U. S. Congress, as they do their jobs. We need to prevent further damage from being inflicted. Our country has a history of discrimination and violence, that is getting much worse. If we don’t change that, we may lose our democracy. What could be a more important?
Post Script
I am dyslexic, and my mother, a teacher, was embarrassed that I couldn’t read, and lamented out loud, “how could I have a dumb kid like you!”? So I learned to hide as I went through schools. As a result I don’t remember ever being in a classroom K through Grad. School at Columbia, it was very painful! However, Miss Rose related to me in 6th grade, and I then developed sensitivity and creativity, and found that I could identify problems and find creative ways to solve them.
After I married and had children my husband taught me to read and write. I’ve been an avid reader since then. When he died at 32 years old, I became the bread winner. I frankly knew next to nothing about education when I took this job. But I could spot a good teacher and I hired an outstanding staff. Then we all listened, watched and as we worked together we learned from everyone and we created a very warm, healing school.
I’ll be forever grateful to my kids Cris and John for reading, editing, and making recommendations for the clarity of this entry.
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