Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 28, 1993 TAG: 9305280229
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The desks were cleared. A welcome banner was taped to a blackboard. Cupcakes and cookies were neatly arranged next to bottles of soda and stacks of cups.
After three months of corresponding with Tracy Wimmer's fourth-grade Penn Forest Elementary School class, the Forest Park students finally would come face to face with their "pen pals."
While lining up to greet the visitors, James Barlow got a sudden case of nerves.
"I'm so scared," he said, ducking behind a door as the bus from Penn Forest pulled up. "I'll have to hide myself."
Slowly, the bus emptied. The Penn Forest students stood with their backs hugged to the bus.
They stared, shyly, at the friends they had come to know on paper. The Forest Park students stared back.
Ashley Leftwich broke the silence.
"They have short people just like we do," the Forest Park student said.
The visit would be merely a for-pleasure field trip if not for an obvious difference in the classes.
Penn Forest - a Southwest Roanoke County school fed in part by the affluent Hunting Hills and Starkey Road areas - is predominantly white. Forest Park - a Northwest Roanoke magnet school whose enrollment includes children from low-income homes - is predominantly black.
The pen pal project was a lesson in cultural and racial enlightenment.
"I realized that growing up I had no exposure to other cultures," said Wimmer, who approached the Forest Park staff last year with the pen pal idea. "There is so much misunderstanding between blacks and whites and other cultures because we don't know each other. And you question what you don't know."
Students began writing to each other in February. They knew one another by name only. Wimmer and Catron made a point not to mention race.
But three weeks into corresponding, one of the Forest Park students slipped a photo of herself in with a letter to her Penn Forest pen pal.
The Penn Forest student was surprised to learn that her pen pal was black, Wimmer said.
"I asked her if that mattered and she said, `Of course not,' " Wimmer said. "Which goes to show you, it doesn't matter. What's important is what's inside. Everything I wanted from this came true at that moment."
A half-hour into Thursday's visit the pen pals had warmed up to one another. They exchanged summer vacation plans and marveled at the technological advances that fill Forest Park's classrooms and corridors.
Tanecia Newman, from Forest Park, gave a friendship card to pen pal Julia Chen. Nikia Johnson wove Penn Forest pal Katherine Garrett's hair into a braid.
The students watched a satellite broadcast from Arizona about solar system mythology. Playing the good hosts, Forest Park students scrambled to find chairs for their pen pals. Others settled together onto floor space.
Maria Catron beamed.
"I am delighted," she said. "I haven't seen a bit of hesitation. They are children. They don't see any differences. They have the same dreams; the same thoughts."
The exchange fit nicely with Forest Park's multicutural study as well as the school's "New American" theme, Principal Judy Gorham said.
"This is a positive aspect of the melting pot - bringing children of different backgrounds together and learning to appreciate other cultures."
The visit ended after a quick hour and 45 minutes. Penn Forest students, assembled at the door of their hosts' classroom, waved goodbye.
They chattered as they walked down two flights of stairs, out the door and onto their bus. As it prepared to pull off, the door opened suddenly.
Out jumped Forest Park student James Barlow, who earlier had been afraid to meet pen pal Robert Belcher.
Now, he said, he wanted to go with him.
by CNB