Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 8, 1995 TAG: 9501070036
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: G-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MELISSA DeVAUGHN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"Mostly all the boys get along," said 10-year-old Chauncey Simmons as he spooned pudding into his mouth. "We're mostly all friends, but sometimes we're enemies ... it's off and on. The girls, though, every time we turn around they're always fighting."
Across the room, the girls express the same sentiments about the boys.
"They think they know everything, especially about science, but they really don't," complains Samantha Sparks, also 10. "One time Carl broke the computer and I know he did it on purpose. He got in trouble for it, too."
No matter how much they complain, it is obvious that the children of Elliston-Lafayette, one of the smallest schools in Montgomery County, near the Roanoke County line, share a certain camaraderie. All the children know each other, and many of them are related. Most of them were born here and have rarely ventured out of the state.
When asked what three things are most important to them, half of Elliston's fifth-graders value their families, including their pets. They also say they'd keep friends and their homes, followed by television and video games.
Fifth-graders at Elliston-Lafayette seem to be happy children - their primary pressure is making good grades or the honor roll. They say they've failed when they perform poorly on a test.
For fun, fifth-grade girls like to go shopping or visit each other at home - "there's no malls out here in the country," says Danielle Dow, 10. There are no skating rinks or playgrounds either, but there is plenty of land. Many fifth-grade boys said they like to go hunting and ride all-terrain vehicles or dirt bikes on their family's land.
For the most part, the world is small to children at Elliston-Lafayette. Trips to Christiansburg, located 15 miles up the mountain, or Salem, less than 10 miles down U.S. 460, are rare. Ten-year-old Michael Hines exemplified the simplistic world in which he lives when trying to describe where one of his classmates had moved.
"It's called Rindy or Rinder or something like that," Michael said of the farming community of Riner, located only 20 miles across the county. "It's far away, though," he added with authority.
That behavior, says Jeannie Hamilton, a licensed clinical psychologist in Blacksburg, is normal. Most fifth-graders are happy in the community in which they live, she said. "They're happy to do things in their family environment or school environment, but most of them are not going to individually initiate" contact with a friend who has moved.
Riner Elementary School, once surrounded by sprawling cornfields, silos and rambling farm houses, is being closed in by subdivisions filled with handsome new homes and barren lots.
With this growth comes people, and Riner Elementary, built to hold 275 pupils, now has more than 300, some in mobile classrooms added outside the school's main building.
Cheryl Roberts' fifth-grade class is in one of these trailers.
"I was so excited to get the mobile unit," Roberts said. It wasn't easy teaching a class full of energetic fifth-graders, she said, in the "small theater" she once used in the school. That space was designed for small group meetings and stage productions, not for academic instruction.
Despite the growth of this once-small town, which has added more than 50 pupils in four years and can expect to add at least 50 more in the next seven years, Principal Keith Rowland says the rural atmosphere still rubs off on the children.
"If I could be anyone, I'd be Trisha Yearwood because she is a country music star," says fifth-grader Cassie Smith.
Josh Altizer says he'd be "Dad because I want to be like him and be a truck driver."
Given the choice of doing anything besides going to school, Charlie Marshall says he'd go hunting all day, and Brandon Linkous would ride his four-wheeler.
Parental involvement with these kids is high, too - more than 70 percent are members of the Riner PTA. Roberts says the result is academically ambitious children.
Here's what some of her fifth-graders wrote when asked what they want to be when they grow up:
"The colage [sic] I want to go to is" Virginia Tech, wrote aspiring engineer Chris Muller. "I am going to get a phd [sic]."
Luke Turner said he wants to be a brain surgeon someday, so he can "help save someone's life."
Cassie Smith is set on becoming a veterinarian.
"I could keep other people's animals from getting sick or getting fleas all over their house by dipping them in some kind of flea killing medicine," she reasoned.
Lena Elms said she wants to be "a nurse that takes care of babies" and Staci Humphrey said she wants to be "a pediatrition [sic]."
"I like children very much," Staci wrote, "and by becoming a pediatrition, I would be rich enough to own horses and have a big house."
And Carmen Reedy, obviously enthusiastic about her fifth-grade year, hopes to be a fifth-grade social studies teacher when she grows up.
"I would like to give kids a good education," she said.
|n n| Several years ago, the 26 students in Guilene Wood's fifth-grade class at Blacksburg's Kipps Elementary School would have been split into different schools or classrooms according to labels: learning-disabled, gifted and attention-deficit disorder among them.
Today they are all in the same class, learning the same material and working toward the same goals.
But they do it at their own pace.
"This is a really wonderful time to be in education," said Wood, a veteran teacher with 17 years in the Montgomery County school system. "It's a great insight into how society is learning to live with different people."
Kipps, which is in its first year of operation, is anchored by the concept of inclusion, a controversial educational philosophy of recent years in which children with disabilities or other special needs learn in a general education classroom.
Nationwide, 36 percent of disabled students attend general education classes at least 80 percent of the day, according to a report released by the U.S. Education Department.
In Montgomery County, 70 percent of all disabled students are included in regular classrooms.
Wood's class - a bright, enthusiastic group made up of all races and backgrounds - is like every other class at Kipps, which can contain students with physical disabilities, mental or emotional disorders such as autism or hyperactivity, or no noticeable limitations at all.
Inclusion proponents say the philosophy has two advantages: educational and social.
Educationally, they say that it gives all students, regardless of their differences, the same opportunities for learning. Socially, they hope the new attitude of acceptance among students will create a better society.
"Schools are a reflection of society," said Kipps Principal Ray VanDyke.
However, the concept is controversial - some people say children with special needs disrupt the learning process for children without those needs.
Expert opinion notwithstanding, there is another group with strong opinions on inclusion: the fifth-grade pupils.
"I like to be around different people," said Charles Price, a soft-spoken 11-year-old with a penchant for baseball and country music. "If you don't learn to get along with them, you won't get along with anybody."
His classmates, many of whom are already literate of words such as multiculturalism, inclusion and diversity, agreed.
"I think it not only gives kids with disabilities an opportunity, it also gives other kids an opportunity, too," said Tianna Johnson, a bright, articulate 10-year-old. "They get to be with people different from them."
|n n| Fifth-graders today live in a different world than fifth-graders of decades past. Baggy clothes are "in," black tennis shoes are "cool," and rattails - those long strands of hair at the back of an otherwise short haircut - are the rage among fifth-graders.
Most fifth-graders take part in the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program run by the local police stations. The program, called DARE, is designed to help children resist drugs, alcohol, stress, violence or other pressures.
The classrooms have changed, too.
The whir of electric pencil sharpeners compete with the familiar grind of the old manual types attached to the wall. And the lesson plan, as demonstrated in Nancy Machincia's fifth-grade class in Christiansburg Elementary School has a quicksilver pace that makes your head spin.
At 9 a.m. a geography lesson featuring the meaning of "D.C.," as in "Washington" ("Discovery of Columbus?" ventures one boy; "District of Columbia" blurts the winner - without raising his hand) turns to spelling by 9:20. Today's lesson: long "I" and long "O."
Before long, that's over and everyone's off down the hall to meet the other fifth-grade class in the multipurpose room, where a stage with traditional burgundy "velvet" curtains competes with cafeteria ladies clattering about preparing lunch.
Here, the fifth graders are presenting plays to illustrate books they have read. We open with "Julie and the Wolf," read a tad too quickly by the energetic narrator, but otherwise a fine portrayal of the feminine heroine tale. Next comes "My Side of the Mountain," about a little boy who gets sick of living in New York City and runs off to the Catskill Mountains.
Then it's back to the classroom. And it's still only 10 a.m.
The 20 children who spend their school days with Machincia worry about the kind of stuff you might expect. Asked what scares them the most, six say being separated from their families, or dying. Asked what they're most sick of, five say Barney. Two mention O.J. Simpson, who had faded to a has-been rental car pitchman by the time most of these kids were born.
Students have pure moments, like Grace Hodge when asked when she was most proud of herself, and when she felt she'd failed: "I was proud of myself when I achieved my goal. I have never failed anything because I kept my hopes up."
And they have moments of extreme realism, like Lucas Board. Asked the same question, he wrote: "When I got into the geograph [sic] bee. When I got a bad grade on a test."
|n n| Despite their many differences, it is equally as easy to find similarities among fifth graders.
In Machincia's class, there's the traditional faux chalk-on-green posterboard example of cursive writing rolled out atop the blackboard. In Kat Emory's class at Elliston-Lafayette the children still recite the "Pledge of Allegiance" every morning before school. And in Roberts class at Riner, the children still have to get a pass to go to the bathroom.
Fifth-graders still like recess the best - "I like to go outside" - says Yan Tes of Elliston-Lafayette Elementary, and cheese pizza is still the favorite - although it competes now with baked chicken nuggets.
"I could eat a hundred of them," Elliston pupil Michael Hines said, as he tried to swap bite-sized fried apple fritters for a classmate's leftover chicken nuggets.
"Kids are kids," said Virginia Tech education Professor Tom Sherman. "There's a certain uniformity that exists across any age grouping, but it's also real important within that to remember every child is different and unique in themselves."
The divorce rate among parents of Machincia's 20 pupils remains phenomenally low - only one in six, compared to the national average of four in 10. In fact, it's similar throughout the county, as most fifth-graders whose parents responded to our survey come from married households.
And then there's the way the children behave - after all, they're kids. They like to pass notes, whisper in class, "share" answers to a test and join "secret" clubs.
"There was a club last year called the Unicorn Club," said 10-year-old Raven Perkins of Elliston-Lafayette. "You could only be in it if you're a girl and you had to be invited. Everybody wanted to be in it."
Hamilton said most fifth-graders are at a stage where they are interested in a variety of activities like "scouts, sports, skills like Odyssey of the Mind, and developing independence."
"They still primarily derive their sense of values from their home and their school is still secondary, but it will change with time," Hamilton said. "I think too, there is a developing sense of identity. They don't define themselves within the group they're not in - like teenagers do - but more by the group they are in."
The similarities among these children cross school boundaries, too.
At first glance, it seems the schools would be worlds apart. The children of Kipps Elementary School - located in the university town of Blacksburg - would seem, to the outsider, more diverse and educated than those children living in the hollows near Elliston and Lafayette. The children in the mostly working-class community of Christiansburg might clash with their nearby neighbors in Riner.
But as far as the fifth-graders are concerned, these hypotheses are a myth.
"Children are more driven by their stage of development than the environment they're in," Hamilton said. "And depending on the teachers that these children have, they can have a tremendous influence."
Test scores are similar at the four Montgomery County schools, regardless of class size or parent's income or marital status.
While a rivalry may exist when it comes to ball games, fifth-graders seem more concerned about where the next slumber party will be held than how educated their peers are.
Staff writers Donna Alvis-Banks, Allison Blake and Ken Davis helped write this story.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***