Community Voices- Excelsior-April

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The Collaboration

By Sonya Bernard-Hollins Publisher, Community Voices

Community Voices and Excelsior are teaming up for literacy. For the next three months, Community Voices will contribute this special insert which features A Reading Community. We will focus on those who have benefited from literacy at an early age, those learning as their children and community inspire them to do so, and the repercussions of illiteracy on a family, community, and nation.

Kalamazoo Public Schools, under the helm of Superintendent Dr. Michael F. Rice, is doing their part to support community literacy efforts and boost momentum for programs that get parents

reading to their children.

Through such collaborations as First Saturday @ KPL, families are encouraged to enjoy the libraries. The KPS Lift Up Through Literacy program, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and part of the Learning Network of Greater Kalamazo, goes into six community centers and churches to provide interactive literacy programs.

According to Rice: When we collectively raise the literacy level of our children to grade level, high school graduation rates will jump, the college-going rate will be higher, and our college success will be above state and national averages. When kids graduate from college they can live out their dreams, and the community economy will jump.

My issue is not simply about

economics; my issue is we need to improve children’s opportunities to live out their dreams. I want us to be the first urban area in the country that is fully literate. I want us to become a college-going culture where The Promise is not only a name, it’s a reality; it’s what we

believe. We should become The Promise District. This starts with reading to a child in the womb and every day after. *See more photos and read more about this collaboration in Community Voices Spring magazine edition.

Dr. Rice reads to Selah Davis, 4, during the First Saturday @ KPL on March 3.

Melanie Salazar selected a few of the dozens of books placed on a large table in the gym adjacent to the offices of the Hispanic American Council.

It was time for children and parents

Above: Jorge Santiago reads to his daughter, Hadassah, 4. Below: Fanny Fernandez reads to her daughter, Aracely, 3.

to read together during this part of the Family Literacy session sponsored

by KPS. Melanie, a third grader at El Sol Elementary School, selected a book shared at her school during Black History Month. In Spanish, she told her mother, Zonia Lopez, about Ruby Bridges, the little African American girl who integrated a school during the Civil Rights era.

Together they read the Spanish version of the book, and talked about the laws that later allowed all children equal education. They were two of the dozens of students and parents who attend the weekly sessions hosted by the Hispanic American Council.

When a young Rev. Dr. Addis Moore grew up on the farms of Sylvania, Ga., chores for the family’s seven brothers and two sisters began at 5:30 a.m. They would then prepare to catch the school bus at 7:30 a.m., come home and do more farm work.

The difference between the Moore children and other sharecropping families was their parents, W.M. and Sadie Moore.

“When other families keep their children out of school to help in the fields, W.M. did not. People thought he was crazy to have all those kids, and not have them work the fields full time,” said Moore, pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church since 1995. His father had a third grade education, and was a couple of generations removed from slavery, but he knew education was important. Sadie, armed with an 11th grade education, tutored her children with their schoolwork.

The family sacrificed to make sure all of their children graduated from high school and could go on to college. They saved to send their third son to Albany State University. When their fourth child, James, attended Augusta Tech (50 miles from their home), W.M. walked seven miles to work so James could take the car to school each day.

At the beginning of 11th grade, young Addis (child number 6), his sister Patsy, and four other African American children were the first to integrate Screven

and allows me to learn better ways to help her before she starts school,” While programming for the six Lift Fernandez said. up Through Literacy sites is similar, the HAC offers the only one tailored toward those who have English as a second language. The atmosphere allows for parents and their children to speak comfortably and express themselves in their first language while getting bilingual instruction from site coordinators Rosalba Roman and Lisa Kincaid. Just as at the other program sites, parents discussed why education is important to their children and what they could do to assist them.

Fanny Fernandez speaks English well and is a student at Western Top: Zonia Lopez reads with her Michigan University.

However, daughter, Melanie Salazar, a she attends the program for her third grader at El Sol Elementary;

Inset: Altagracia three-year-old daughter, Aracely, for Zuniga poses with son, the same reasons as many others.

Manuel Bello, 4.

“This gives us more time to read together outside the house,

County’s all-white Dublin High School. After graduation he worked for a year to earn $400 for one semester of college at ASU. Once there, he discovered grants and work-study programs that would later benefit his siblings and take financial strain off his parents.

As a church leader he has been instrumental in exemplifying the importance literacy played in helping move their family from the poverty and sharecropping, to owing their own farm. Taking that message to the church, he has instituted a church library, bookstore, after-school programs, and an Endowment Fund which distributes $10,000 in scholarships annually.

“We have to take responsibility for the education of our children,” Rev. Moore said. “Children need to discover who they are, their purpose. Education is a big part of that.”

Pastor Addis Moore adds his own twist to the story of The Three Little Pigs during the afterschool program at Mt. Zion Baptist Church.

Phyllis (Ash) Seabolt

grew up in Dowagiac, the eldest child of Carl and Gladys Ash. They were proponents of education who quizzed their children each night on spelling and math facts, and always asked about their day at school.

One evening Phyllis told her father about a paper she wrote at school. It boasted on her father’s daily regiment of reading five newspapers. To that, the teacher wrote, “Isn’t this a gross exaggeration?”

“Father was furious,” Seabolt recalls. “Even with his eighth grade education, he was well-spoken, and was president of our local NAACP. He was

first insulted that a teacher would accuse me of lying; secondly his character was in question. The next day my father visited that teacher, with his five newspapers.”

While her parents did everything they could to protect their children, there were times young Phyllis would have to stand without them.

She left home in 1943 to attend Western State Teacher’s College (now Western Michigan University). There were 13 black students on campus; none allowed to live or eat in the segregated dorms. In her last year of college, her dean reported that she would be given an “A” in exchange for a class credit that required she live on campus.

“I left her office in tears,” Seabolt said. “A fellow white

There was a wild philosophical debate going on among the boys at one table at Open Door Ministries about the chicken and the egg.

They were

Above: Angela Shaw reads to her grandchildren.

Below: Joyce Wells, site coordinator, reads to student.

student asked what was wrong.

When I told her, she marched back into the dean’s office with me, and said she would be my roommate in the house. I was allowed to live there, and no students had any problem with it.”

When Seabolt graduated from WMU in 1947, she took her place in history as the first African American secondary education teacher in Kalamazoo Public Schools. At Vine Junior High School she would be one of two African Americans; the other was student (the late) John Johnson. She would work 21 years in KPS, and another 17 years teaching home economics at WMU. Today, her baby sister, Dr. Martha Warfield, who was entering kindergarten the year

participating in one of six KPS Lift Up Through Literacy Family Literacy Night sessions, and the conversation was sparked by a book Joyce Wells read called First the Egg, by Laura Vaccaro Seeger. Wells is the site’s literacy coordinator and First Lady of Open Door, located at 416 Phelps St. She uses the students’ excitement about topics to inspire them to think about what they read and how it relates to their own lives.

After Wells’ story, parents and students gave their ideas on why reading to children is important. Darius Boyd said, “It helps us go to college,

Seabolt entered college, is vice president of the KPS Board of Education, and vice president of Diversity and Inclusion at WMU. Seabolt’s other siblings, brother, Rolland, and sister, Carolyn, also completed college at WMU. “Our parents were Carl and Gladys,” Warfield said, laughing. “We knew from the time we started school we were going to college.”

graduate, and get a good job.”

That’s the lesson Wells and others heading programs want all children to know.

“Reading is the key to any child’s success,” she said.

“Once we find out what they like-sports, comics, race cars, mysteries-we use that to get them to read. We want to guide them and get to know their interests. When we do that, we build a love for reading, and it is not seen as an obligation.”

Open Door’s literacy program meets Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and has allowed parents an opportunity to have guidance in the education of their children.

This was just what Julienne Ndayizeye needed. She moved to Kalamazoo from Tanzania

Above: Dr. Martha Warfield, left, poses with her sister, Phyllis Seabolt.

four years ago. Her primary languages are Swahili and Kaludi, so the older of her five children translate for her.

“I came (to this program) to learn how to read, and my children to learn how to read,” she said.

Grandmother Angela Shaw said this is an opportunity for her to ‘stand in the gap’ and help her grandchildren get a jump on reading.

“There were books in my house when I grew up, but we weren’t read to,” Shaw said. “I want to do that for my grandchildren.”

A child who is read to every day from birth will have been fed roughly 900 hours of brain food by age 5.

than 60 hours of literacy nutrition and is 3-4 times more likely to drop out of school.

Students who have books, magazines, newspapers, and encyclopedias in their home score higher on average than those who report having fewer reading sources.

U.S. Department of Education

National Center for Education Statistics

We would like First Saturday @ KPL to be a permanent part of our programming.

Ann Rohrbaugh, KPL Director (Library assistant Amy Jastrzembski helps student during event.)

This is a good event; fun for the kids. I’ve lived in Kalamazoo for three years and this is my first time in this library.

Amr Mahmoud I want to be a teacher. I play school in my room. My Cabbage Patch and stuffed animals are my students.

Samantha Bannister, 7

In this room today, I see hope, and hope takes us into the future.

Rev. Denise Posie, President Northside Ministerial Alliance Pastor, Immanuel Christian Reformed Church

U.S. Department of Education

Re

60 percent of America’s prison Department of Justice inmates are illiterate and 85% of all juvenile offenders A kindergartner who have reading has not been read to problems. enters school with less

ing = $ d a

Education Level and Annual Earnings

$ $$

21 million Americans can’t read at all, 45 million are marginally illiterate and one-fifth of high school graduates can’t read their diplomas.

Master’s, professional degree:

$79,946 & higher Bachelor’s degree

$54,689

High School Diploma

$29,449

Less than High School Diploma

$19,915 & lower Census Bureau, 2007

Nearly half of America’s adults are poor readers, or “functionally illiterate.”

They can’t carry out simple tasks like balancing check books, reading a medicine label, or writing an essay for a job.

National Adult Literacy Survey

FIRST SATURDAY @ KPL

On March 3, the Kalamazoo Public Library and the Kalamazoo Public Schools teamed up for literacy with the Northside Ministerial Alliance, the NAACP, and the Hispanic American Council. On the first Saturday of each month, different community churches, organizations, businesses, and educational institutions will host a Saturday read program to encourage families to “check out” what’s happening at the library. The first event drew hundreds of parents and their children, many of whom were first-time visitors to the library. Dr. Michael F. Rice, KPS superintendent, beamed as he walked into the Children’s Room of the Central Branch. How did he feel?

“Fabulous!”

Read more in Community Voices.

All photos and design by Fortitude Graphics

We exposed our children to reading at an early age. We just bought a Kindle and want to learn how to use the library to download books as well.

Erik Achenbach