MOTIVATING MINORITY CHILDREN (Biographical)

In the mid to late 1960s, I was induced to join a group whose aim was to motivate 5th grade children in a high-rise, low-cost housing complex in Denver one night a week during the school year.  I wasn't sure how I could contribute, but would try.  The makeup of the development was 90% Hispanic, 5% African American, and 5% other (Caucasian, Asian,, etc.).  It turned out however, that at least half the "classes"* were African American.  I was to learn that there were 20 or so mother's in this complex who would do anything to help their children have a better life than theirs.  Whatever the problems faced by African Americans, the Hispanics problems were worse.

Now I was a research geologist with no training in teaching children so I wondered what I could contribute.  The first thing I noticed was the children had trouble especially with arithmetic: multiplication and division.  So I bought some flash cards and at the beginning of the "class," I would warm up the children with contests as to who could get the right answer first.    As time went on, the competition appealed to the children, especially the boys, and they would spit out the right answers to things like "What is 23 times 22?"  The flash cards went up to 25.  And the children would go home and teach their siblings so that as the years went by, everyone got better, but the African Americans were always the best.  Division was more difficult as you can only do simple division with flash cards.  The children easily mastered these.

I also would attract one or two children to make and paint paper mâché volcanoes.  When done, I would steal some dry ice from work and drop it into a empty Campbell's soup can with some water in it so we could have smoke come out of the volcano. It was lots of fun for both of us.  It was also educational in that I would keep up a patter on volcanoes as we went along and let them know there were opportunities there for a career.

As a scientist, I admit I used to look down my nose at secondary school teachers whose courses were so easy, but, in these meetings, I learned respect for grade school teachers. The teachers had learned something about relating to children that I didn't have.  Remember now, these teachers had spent all day teaching, but came out at night to do some more.  I recall one teacher who looked to me like she was always on the edge of a nervous breakdown, and the children would flock to her and tell her all of their problems.

The school year after the Martin Luther King assassination was tough and not much progress was made.  I figured, however, that the fact that these children were exposed to a Caucasian who didn't hate them was learning enough.

Things got pretty wild for awhile.  One night as I was leaving, a bunch of students were mulling around the lawn in front of the school door yelling things like "Burn the expletive place down."  So I was a bit apprehensive as I opened the door to leave, but I calmed myself with the thought that I had a lot of these kids in the motivational classes, and they didn't seem to hate me.  As I stepped out, three big African American girls that I had in a "class" approached me and said, "Dr, Ford, Dr. Ford, we are going to riot.  We really are going to riot."  To which I replied "Wherever you girls are is a riot."  They laughed and laughed and rolled on the ground.  I then walked to my car, unimpeded, and drove home.

We were told to never let a child back into the "class" once they had advanced to the 6th grade.  The 5th grade was considered the last good year before the children found out what their fate was to be.  I had one African American girl who had "graduated" to the next grade come up to me and beg to be let into the "class" again.  "Dr. Ford, Dr. Ford, please, please, please let me in."  I was weakening when a small African American boy started poking her in the back.  She swing around and kicked the little boy in the stomach.  "I'm sorry, but I really can't let you back in."

There was one African American girl who had a beautiful name - Charlotte Hawkins - who could run faster than the wind.  No one could beat her, not the instructors, male or female, and certainly not me.  She did go on to become a runner of some note in college though she never got to the top.  I hope something good happened to her.

Some wise people decided to introduce some high school students to the "class" on the basis that they could better relate to the 5th graders.  In fact, the high scroll students turned out to be a problem,  they would gather together and talk or show that they really didn't wasn't to be there.  What seemed like a good idea was a big mistake.

In October, I was transferred to Zurich, Switzerland for a year.  When I left, Denver had been in a building boom for several years.  There was lots of optimism in the people of the complex as the men could find work.  When I came back, the building boom was over and the men were out of work again.  Also it seems something happened to one or more of the high school girls and the effort was disbanded. I had looked forward to taking up where I left off, but that part of my life was over. I had no children of my own, so such works were a way of my making a contribution to society.

* I use class in parentheses because they were not classes in the usual sense, but one motivator on one or a few children with the students making the choice of motivator and each motivator did their own thing to help motivate the children.