THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 23, 1995 TAG: 9508220014
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 38 lines
I almost choked on my bagel and had tears in my coffee as I read the Metro-News the morning of Aug. 6. I am in the field of education and calling children names other than their given name is unacceptable.
Low-income and African-American children can be motivated and can learn. We have learned how to teach deaf children, how to teach Braille to blind children and how to teach life skills to the retarded. We are all individuals and we learn in different ways, but we can all learn.
Maybe the problem begins with the insensitivity of the superintendent of Norfolk schools who refers to these children as ``street urchins.'' One of the first ways of addressing this issue is to humanize the superintendent and his staff, and to orient them toward individual differences.
Yale University Professor James Comer is nationally known for work with poor minority youngsters in inner-city New Haven and other cities as he has brought them to respectable levels of academic achievement. Sociologist Reginald Clark has also done extensive writings and work toward community-based educational enrichment to stimulate under-achieving youngsters. Any number of well-known people in this country could assist Norfolk personnel in understanding what these children are like and how to work with them.
Low-income and African-American children can learn; they can be stimulated even in these difficult times. Their horizons can be broadened and they can be motivated to strive to be the best. They are not ``street urchins.''
J. M. HICKMAN
Norfolk, Aug. 9, 1995 by CNB