ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 11, 1996 TAG: 9602090028
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON
Liza Highfill believes you can't start teaching civil rights too early.
At Troutville Elementary School in Botetourt County, Highfill tells her first-graders a story about when she was in the first grade at a segregated school in Salem. Her teacher didn't believe in segregation, she said. To illustrate its injustice, she divided the class into two groups, blue-eyed children and brown-eyed children.
One group was allowed to use the drinking fountain. The other wasn't.
``I remember thinking, `This is ridiculous,' but it made me know how it felt,'' Highfill said.
That simple illustration had a profound influence, she said. Today, in her own classroom, Highfill stops short of using the same tactic on her own students. However, she does have them each memorize a line from Martin Luther King Jr.'s ``I Have a Dream'' speech, and looks up any big words in the dictionary with them that they don't understand.
Then they practice reciting their lines until, after a couple of weeks, Highfill said every child in the class can recite the entire speech, or at least the most famous part of it. She only has 20 students. But it's a start.
``You know, I have to be pretty basic with the little ones.''
LENGTH: Short : 32 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL STAFF color Liza Highfillby CNB