Awareness of black needs urged
"Teachers in college and especially on the highschool level must become more aware of the problems and needs of black students," said a black engineer from Western Electric, Jim Dumas.
He emphasized this point in a speech, "Engineering Education for Blacks: Lower Standards," addressed to a meeting of the American Society of Engineering Educators (ASEE).
Dumas stressed the importance of not worrying about losing academic accreditation and lowering academic standards while improving methods of black student education.
He said a major problem confronting the educational system now was the fact that the present quality of education in predominantly black schools was still poor.
This, he said, is the result of lack of encouragement shown by instructors toward black students, something that is also true of black students in predominantly white schools.
Another problem confronting black students in high school preparing for college is that in the integrated schools cultural differences between blacks and whites cause a gap in communication, preventing white teachers from understanding the real problems black students face, he said. Even if blacks do make the grade, Dumas said, there still exists this lack of communication because what is culturally common to blacks may be completely foreign to whites.
But one of the most important problems to be found in the educational system, he said, is a lack of good counseling, especially in high schools.
There are just not enough counselors, Dumas said. The schools should be supplied with enough counselors to provide for a balanced system of guidance. There should be more black counselors, also; so that this "communication gap" can be filled in.
Pollution then, too
HOLLAND, Mich. (UPI) -- You think air pollution is bad now? In 1889 in Chicago, one of America's soootest cities, there was darkness at noon.
In the words of an eyewitness, the late President E. D. Dimnent of Hope College in Holland:
"The sun, as is its wont on a summer morning in August, rose early in all its magnificence and for two or three hours shone with all its splendor. At about 9 o'clock, one noticed that it shone no more but seemed but a dying ember. Rapidly it darkened and at 1:00 o'clock a darkness rivaling in density the blackness of a starless sky at midnight enshrouded the city."
Dinnent wrote the description in an essay when he was a preparatory school student. He noted that the development of a smoke burner that would reduce air pollution was helping somewhat in clearing up the atmosphere, adding, "We hope that before long this great problem will be fully solved."
LAS founded in 1891
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has been in practical existence since the founding of the University, but was not established as a school until the reorganization of the University in 1891. It was first called the School of Arts and in 1904 its name was changed to the present one.
Apr.15 1970 KANSAN 15
Many white counselors tend to stereotype black students into a particular category, using a set of "cultural traits" and applying them to all black students, preventing a true evaluation of the students' abilities.
There is also a lack of vocational exposure in counselors, he said. Counselors should be given a chance to help blacks on their own levels so that a better understanding of black student problems can be seen, he said.
Why do blacks avoid the chance for a higher-level career such as engineering? The answer to this, Dumas said, lies in the "fear of failure" experienced by many pre-college black students.
He said that many times black students who had received college degrees return home to find they cannot get a job in their major area of study. This, he said, is the result of continued discrimination and prevents bright young black students from wanting to continue.
Another way of helping black students enrolled in colleges is to improve the existing methods of guidance and counseling. Guidance personnel, Dumas said, should be trained to discover efficiencies in the curriculum of black students in high school so that they will be better prepared to attend college.
He said that the University of
Kansas was now working on a program that would help black students make up for deficiencies in English, mathematics, and other subjects.
The teaching system itself, he said, can be improved to help black students in a number of ways. Teachers must find better techniques to get normal material across to blacks in the worst ghetto schools. He said that teachers in these schools could not use middle-class suburban school techniques because the students just would not accept it.
Teachers need to be exposed to sensitivity awareness programs so that they can become more involved with the needs of black students, Dumas said. High school
teachers should help by encouraging black students to do the things they are most interested in, he said.
Most important of all, the teachers need to expect more from the black students, he said. This can be done by recognizing students' abilities and then encouraging them to utilize their abilities by showing them that they are expected to excel, he said.
Dumas is a 1964 graduate of KU in electrical engineering and was a three-year letterman in basketball here.
The speech was addressed to delegates of the fifth annual meeting of the ASEE in the Kansas Union ballroom.