THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 28, 1995 TAG: 9501280252
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DENISE WATSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
Eunice Kennedy Shriver visited Northside Middle School on Friday to get a glimpse of values-based education at work.
She got an eyeful.
Above the four adolescent girls who waited in the hallway for Shriver's autograph, dozens of hand-drawn posters lined the corridor - ``Respect Yourself and Others,'' ``If we could all stick together, there will be peace,'' ``Being Different is What Makes Us Us.''
Inside the stuffy library, more than 40 teachers from Northside and Granby High School spent Friday afternoon working with Shriver, who heads the national Community of Caring program that both schools now follow. The group focused on ways to foster the program's tenets of respect and responsibility.
The program was founded by the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation to stress to students - through daily schoolwork, teen forums and community service - the values of caring, trust, respect, responsibility and family. The hope is that students will use what they learn and choose to avoid sexual activity and other behaviors that could adversely affect their lives.
``My own experience came through watching my brothers in politics,'' said Shriver, the sister of John, Robert and Ted Kennedy. ``Values were discussed all the time, civil rights, how they stressed the importance of education for all.
``I realized that some of our most value-conscious are our teachers, who are teaching our children. It seemed reasonable to have values-based education in our schools.''
Linking the words ``values'' and ``schools'' usually sets off alarms - in parents who worry about what will be taught and in educators who fear being accused of imposing the ``wrong'' values.
But Norfolk public school officials haven't received any complaints.
``People forget we teach values on a daily basis - attendance, coming to school prepared, a work ethic,'' said Charlene Christopher, president of the Education Association of Norfolk.
``But the values that they're introducing ought to be safe enough. These are values that all humans should have for one another.''
The Kennedy Foundation formed 12 years ago to focus on the prevention of mental retardation. As studies began showing that pregnant teens are more likely than older pregnant women to give birth to mentally retarded children, the focus turned toward the schools.
Northside and other school systems already are seeing positive results of the program.
Northside logged 61 fights between September and December of 1993, but the number fell to 33 in 1994. Armstrong High School in Richmond has been working with the program for more than four years and has shown a marked improvement in academic scores and attendance. Its teen-pregnancy rate has been cut in half.
Last year, Norfolk's Northside and Granby became the first schools in the area to implement separate values programs on top of the state-mandated Family Life classes. Family Life teaches human reproduction in a span of a few class periods. The Caring program is infused into year-round, daily school lessons.
``We might talk about Isabella and Ferdinand and the trust that must have existed between them and Columbus,'' said Berdell Wilson, head of the social studies department at Granby High School, the only other Community of Caring school.
``We talk about that trust and relate it to things that occur today so that they see that trust, respect goes across the line.''
Both schools have also developed programs to better stress the values. Granby students elect the ``most respectful'' students and teachers of the month. Northside has a conflict-mediation program that helps students resolve problems before they escalate into violence. The school's Pizazz modern jazz dance group performs as a community service while promoting self-esteem, unity and respect among the members.
Community of Caring began in 1986 with five schools and is now in about 150 schools in 18 states and in Washington.
The Kennedy Foundation provides two-day training for the teachers; Colonial Chevrolet donates $5,000 to Granby and Northside each year to help sponsor programs.
Pam Slobe, department chair for special education at Northside, said the program could become systemwide with additional funding.
``We had a wonderful, caring atmosphere here already,'' Slobe said. ``We only got better at what we do.'' ILLUSTRATION: LAWRENCE JACKSON/Staff
Eunice Kennedy Shriver inspects how the Community of Caring program,
which she heads, works at Northside Middle School in Norfolk on
Friday afternoon.
KEYWORDS: VALUES-BASED EDUCATION by CNB