a and d ed to es a ao ne m or ar ne o ct te y e s us University Daily Kansan Thursday, February 1, 1978 5 Soft drink commercials used to illustrate cultures BY BARBARA JENSEN Staff Reporter Staff Reporter Coca-Cola commercials may succeed where segregation and the melting pot have failed, according to Fred Rodriguez, assistant vice president of the company. Rodriguez teaches a course in multi-cultural curriculum in the department of education. He said yesterday that he used a "Coca-Cola curriculum" because the commercials for that product showed diverse and integrated groups of people. "I try to teach my students to learn to appreciate, accept and respect cultural differences and then apply it in the classroom," he "Cultural pluralism is the only thing left." "The melting pot theory supposed that immigrants would come here, melt into one large pot and lose their ethnic differences. But that hasn't worked for people with slanted eyes or dark skin," Rodriguez said. "We've also seen segregation fail." Rodriguez said schools gave only a narrow view of cultural history. "When I WAS in school, the only thing we learned about black history was slavery, reconstruction and riots," Rodriguez said. "It was very hard." "We're still producing teachers who are ignorant of other cultures. It's not a disgrace to be ignorant, but it's a disgrace to be ignorant." Rodriguez said he had been ashamed of his Mexican-American background when he was in grade school. He wasn't allowed to speak Spanish, and when his teacher asked students what they had been eating and buttressing because he was ashamed to say he had eaten rice and beans. "ITS IMPORTANT to point out stereotypes to children. In textbooks you see pictures of a Mexican in a sombrero sitting under a cactus, and you see the same thing on walls at taco joints," he said. "It's important that you tell children not all Mexicans look *We teach about the Indians for a week at Thanksgiving and then we forget about them for the rest of the year. Children go into cultural shock when you go outside the school walls because they we only see about the white, Amberjack male culture. We still tell this story in the classroom. Since Jan. 1, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education has required that multi-cultural classes be offered, but Rodriguez said he thought they should be required of education majors. He said many of the multi-cultural classes offered at universities were only electives and were often in history, sociology or women's "RACISM AND sexism are alive and well," he said. "Everyone's just being tacific about it today. Someone has to make attitude changes happen, and we may as well have our teachers start in the kindergarten classroom." He said he would take his class to a powow at Haskell Indian Junior College in May and would spend a weekend in the inner city in New York. Rodriguez said he liked his classes to be involved in many activities because children have different learning abilities. "Some can learn easily from lectures. But others learn best through conversation or motor skills," he said. ONE OF THE ACTIVES Rodriguez has his students participate in is making a "me paper." Each student lies on a large piece of paper while someone traces his outline. Then the student writes things about himself inside the outline, such as likes, dislikes favorite fantasies, how he would like others to see him, what he considers to be the most problems in the world and a short story to the world. Rodriguez said the purpose of the "me paper" was to show each student that he was unique. "We must feel good about ourselves before we can feel good about others," he said. "I also wanted to show that there are different ways." It's a common school issue for boys. "It's a problem," School should meet the needs of the children, which partially are exposed to them dif- "We need to add a fourth to the three R's of readhng, writing and arithmetic--relating." Oread residents to present plan Oread area residents and landlords will present their views about the Oread Neighborhood Plan to the city-county commission at a public meeting tonight at 7; The meeting will be on the fourth floor of the First National Bank Tower, 910 Massachusetts. The plan is an assessment of the status of the neighborhood and contains suggestions about how the area should be treated by the city. This information will be the number of the city-city planning commission. The plan also contains recommendations about how community development funds can be used. A recently formed splinter group, the Hillside Improvement Association, also wants to improve the area, according to its president, Glen McGenion. The association is composed almost entirely of landlords, he said, and some also are Oread residents. The Oread Neighborhood Association plans to present the commission a resolution that supports improvements in Oread, preservation of older housing and maintenance of the present population density in the area. McGonigle said the association would like to improve the area to increase property values as well as to benefit the residents of the area. McGougle said that the Oreed Neighborhood Plan could serve as a guide for upgrading the area, but that it was just a starting place. "Our emphasis is upgrading in a good practical way. The ideas are put forth by owners with a good solid interest in the property. So many of the others are transients and will be there for only a short time," he said. LOOK! 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