University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, February 18, 1992
Educating against bias
5
Lawrence schools strive to stop racism at early age
By Greg Farmer
Kansan staff writer
Martin Luther King Jr. dreamt of ending racism.
Children inspired that dream.
"I have a dream that one day ... little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers," King said in 1963.
Representatives of Lawrence Public Schools said yesterday that they hoped their attempt to educate children about all cultures would help King's dream come true.
Bill Wilson, director of human resources for Lawrence Public Schools, said the district had tried in recent years to design a curriculum that included all cultures.
He said the district was trying to purchase text-books that were written by minority authors and looked at history without bias. He said the district was unwilling to use its programs to see if students were being excluded.
"We have and will continue to look for ways to encourage our teachers to look at history from a more complete perspective," he said. "We want bias-free teaching from bias-free textbooks. A historically accurate look at the world is what we want."
Wilson said that the school district was trying to attract more minority teachers.
The district uses about 200 placement bureaus throughout the nation to search for candidates for positions, Wilson said. Many of those have a large
"I don't know if schools alone can educate racism
away."
Brad Tate
Brad Fate Lawrence High School principal
pool of minority applicants.
"We have tried to work with our staff to help us recruit more minority teachers and staff," he said.
The district employs 90 minority members, 47 of which are teachers or support staff. Wilson said the
"We are not having a lot of success recruiting minority faculty members, but I think we are doing all we can," he said.
"Conferences teach faculty members to think along the lines of cooperative learning," he said. "Everybody can learn, and we should all learn from one another."
Wilson said that the district encouraged teachers to attend conferences
Toni Harrell, librarian at East Heights Elementary School, 1430 Haskell Ave., said it was important for schools to teach children about different cultures at a young age.
"It is never too early to learn about diversity," she
said. "Our goal is to expose children to different cultures
that they can understand that people are different. We want to provide all students with a positive self-image."
Harrell said that 30 percent of the students at East Heights were African-American and that 15 percent were Native-American.
Brad Tate, principal at Lawrence High School, 1901 Louisiana St., said that attempts had been made to integrate African-American history into U.S. history and literature courses. But he said he was not sure those efforts were having much effect on racial relations.
"The high school is not any different than the community," Fate said. "There are lots of things that we do to lessen tension, but tension remains. We have kids here that are very prejudiced. I worry about it a lot, but I don't know if schools alone can educate racism away."
Norma Norman, associate director of minority affairs at the University of Kansas, said that education at the primary and secondary levels would help with the racial problems at institutions of higher education.
"I have been very supportive of educating children starting in preschool," Norman said. "We want to promote personal wholeness and personal self-value. If we do this from preschool through high school, then students who come to the University will be more open to different ideas."
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