Evelyn Tyler was an elementary
student in the late 1940s when a teacher chained her legs and
wrists to a classmate. They were pretending to be African
slaves, and the object of the lesson, she recalls, was to break
free.
"We were in bondage
like slaves," she said. But the topic was not black history,
said Tyler, an instructional assistant at Ewell School on Smith
Island.
"It was a story about
Abraham Lincoln -- he helped free the slaves," she said. "We
were linked and we broke the links."
More than 60 years
later, classroom lessons at Ewell and throughout the region
underscore experiences of African-Americans and other cultural
groups, and teachings continue year-round.
"Way back, the only
person I could find (for students) was Martin Luther King," she
said. "About 20 years ago, there was more. Around the '80s, we
started seeing blacks in the books a lot more. Kids were more
exposed."
Black life that once
was brought into focus in February during Black History Month is
incorporated into regular curriculum instruction, says Tyler,
who has worked in education for more than 30 years.
A picture of a less
notable African-American -- the Rev. Ashley Maxwell -- hangs on
a Black History Month bulletin board at Ewell School, alongside
portraits of Frederick Douglass, the Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr., George Washington Carver, Phyllis Wheatley and Harriet
Tubman.
Educators at the
school want students on the predominately white Chesapeake Bay
island to know that Maxwell was a former pastor at their United
Methodist churches.
Janice Kitching, a
pre-kindergarten and kindergarten teacher, said Maxwell was more
than a friend and community leader who served their churches for
five years before retiring several years ago.
He supported a
movement that kept liquor sales off the island. He preached at
churches in Ewell, Tylerton and Rhodes Point, the three hamlets
that make up Somerset County's Smith Island. And he was only one
of a handful of African-Americans to ever live on the island,
Kitching said.
"His being here helped
us understand the black experience," Kitching said. "We want
students to know who he is."
Tyler Tyler, 9, a
fourth-grader, said the name was familiar, "maybe."
Last week, Tyler
focused on Japanese culture, reading a story called Grass
Sandals, a story of noted poet Basho. His assignment was to
compare and contrast Basho's life to Pat Cummings, an
African-American author and painter.
The experience is,
said teaching Principal Janet Evans, a lesson in diversity that
introduces students to cultures that are not part of routine
island life.
"Here at the school,
we'd be the main source of providing experience and information
than in the rest of the community," she said. "School is the
major source of that."
Evans grew up on Smith
Island -- for decades an all-white, offshore community of about
300 residents, and where even today only a handful of black
families live -- mostly during the summer months.
In segregated Somerset
County in the 1960s, Louise Windsor interacted with black
children who taught her some truths about African-American
culture. In classes at Greenwood Elementary School in Princess
Anne, she flinches at slave-era jargon used in modern texts.
"I find it to be
degrading. It doesn't depict what the black culture is today,"
said Windsor, a reading specialist at Greenwood Elementary.
Her childhood
experience also made the 1969 process of school desegregation
easier.
"We played, running
around. It was never a racial issue," Windsor said. "When
schools integrated, I wasn't among those having a fit."
'A world culture'
Between Sept. 15 and
Oct. 15 each year, American Indian culture is underscored for
students in public schools in Wicomico County, said Judylynn
Mitchell, who supervises elementary education, as well
multicultural programs. Throughout October, the Hispanic
experience is highlighted, she said.
"The public is more
sensitive and aware of the diverse needs of learners," Mitchell
said. "We make a conscious effort to make education inclusive,
and diversity is spread throughout the curriculum."
A focus on
multicultural themes is a mandate of the Maryland State
Department of Education, and schools have moved from framing
teachings about ethnic groups during designated times of the
year.
"It's 365 days. We've
gone beyond Black History Week, Black History Month," Mitchell
said. "The beauty of culture is developed over the years, and it
is a world culture."
Spanish themes are as
prominent in public education as the African-American
experience, a reflection of growing Hispanic and Latino cultures
in the United States, observes David Alston, academic director
of the Study Abroad Program at the University of Maryland
Eastern Shore.
"Society is so
diverse; it is not just African-Americans. Now, Latinos are the
largest (U.S.) ethnic group," Alston said.
"In 45 years, 50
percent of the U.S. population will be non-white, ethnic
minorities," he said. "That's part of it."
Advocates pressed
higher education systems to embrace black history as early as
the 1950s, but emphasis placed on courses in African-American
history at universities "was the reality of the '60s" during the
Civil Rights movement, Alston said. The trend trickled down to
public schools, he said.
"The push in the early
1950s became a broader-based push for change at the college
level in the 1960s," he said. "Since then, there has been
improvement in textbooks."
Diversity in
textbooks
Editors at Scholastic
Books Inc. cite black writer Walter Dean Myers as the publishing
company's "first best-selling author of books dealing with
African-American themes and characters," according to a company
spokeswoman in New York.
Scholastic is the
nation's largest publisher and distributor of children's books
and school-based book clubs and fairs, and includes dozens of
black authors and themes among 350 million books published
annually, the spokeswoman said, adding that the company also
publishes a Spanish series of books.
"Scholastic has always
had a diverse list that extends into the trade, library and
educational markets," the spokeswoman said. "Consistently ...
(they) sell strongly."
Viviene Cheek,
supervisor of primary and elementary education for the Somerset
County Board of Education, introduced a new reading series this
year that not only addresses the federal No Child Left Behind
initiative to improve public education, but also emphasizes
diversity.
"The book companies
are doing a lot better with that," said Cheek, adding that
supplemental classroom tools as Weekly Reader and Time for Kids
magazines supply educators and students with up-to-the-minute
news and time-sensitive information that textbooks cannot
provide.
The series, published
by MacMillan-McGraw Hill, one of several popular textbook
publishers, has broadened its content and is more culturally
diverse, says Evans, the teaching principal at Ewell.
"It is doing a much
better job with materials relating to black history, black
writers and illustrators," she said. "There is much more variety
in the sources of literature -- Chinese, Japanese, American --
(diversity) is throughout."
In earlier years,
Windsor's students complained about repeated lessons about the
likes of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, the Southern black
woman who in the 1960s gained national attention for taking a
seat on a city transit bus designated for whites.
"Students would be
quick to to ask you, 'is there somebody else?' Harriett Tubman
-- that's another one we worked to death," she said. "There are
more now than 30 years ago."
At Greenwood, a Black
History Month display of books and other materials is featured
in the school media center, and Windsor routinely explores
African-Americans and authors of other cultures throughout the
academic year.
"I don't see why I
have to make a big issue of it," she said, but acknowledged that
"I knew Black History Month was coming up" when selecting
February's featured novel, "Zeely," by black author Virginia
Hamilton.
Scholastic also
features special Black History Month books and supplemental
lesson plans online for teachers, parents and students, the
spokeswoman said.
"We are able to
provide newsworthy information and current events to the
classrooms," she said. "Our mission has always been to provide
quality books for all ethnic backgrounds."
Empowered by exposure
Evans can recall a
mention of Jacob Lawrence, a noted black artist, during her
school days. For the most part, though, black history was
synonymous with the civil rights leader, the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr.
"I remember Jacob
Lawrence. A lot of kids never heard about things like that," she
said.
Alston is a UMES
associate professor of sociology, and has invested years of
research into social influences on black males who drop out of
public school systems. There is evidence that black studies and
a positive depiction of characters in literature enlighten and
boost esteem, although staggering graduation rates among black
males also suggest that for some, motivation beyond the
inclusion of African-American studies in public education are
needed, he said.
"It wasn't until I
reached college that I took African-American courses, and they
empowered me; it was believed that the pathway to success was
education," he said. "But blacks with a high school education
can't get a job, and whites with less education make more money.
They see this, and it could a contributing factor."
