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10, 2010 | V
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D A I L Y
MISSISSIPPIAN The Student Newspaper
of
The University
of
M i ss i ss i p p i | S e r v i n g O l e M i ss
and
Oxford
since
1911 |
www.thedmonline.com
TEACHER CORPS ADDRESSES POVERTY IN MISS. BY BLAKE JOHNSON The Daily Mississippian
Ben Guest, program manager for the Mississippi Teacher Corps, estimates that one-third of children in Mississippi are living in poverty, and possibly more. The goal of the Mississippi Teacher Corps is to address the shortage of teachers in the Mississippi Delta, which is one of the highest areas of poverty in the country according to Guest. “The Mississippi Teacher Corps is a two year teaching program designed for non-education majors,” Guest said. “We take college seniors who are not majoring in education and give them highly specialized training and put them in high-poverty school districts in Mississippi.” The group targets rural areas like the Delta and inner-city areas such as Jackson, because those are the places where poverty is more prevalent and where proper education is most absent. The goal of MTC is to bring in outstanding students who may not have been interested in education, and turn them into outstanding teachers. Students who work in the MTC program receive full teacher’s pay with benefits, as well as a master’s degree in education from the University of Mississippi. “90 percent of our participants stay involved in education once they have completed the program, 70 percent are still K-12 teachers or administrators somewhere in the country, 50 percent stay for a third year in the school district they were placed in,”
this week UNIVERSITY MUSEUM
SOUTHERN FOLK ART EXPERIENCE This inaugural folk art exhibition in the new Hattie Mae Edmonds Gallery examines the complex role of Southern Folk Art in relation to the artistic mainstream developed by historians, critics, and scholars. Works on view include examples by artists James “Son” Thomas, Purvis Young, Mose Tolliver, Jim Sudduth, Rev. Howard Finster, Sulton Rogers, M. B. Mayfield, and Luster Willis. BONDURANT AUDITORIUM
ALOSH LECTURE Professor Mahdi Alosh will deliver the 50th annual Christopher Longest Lecture: “Learning Arabic: The Risk of Identifying with the Adversary.” The lecture is hosted by the Departments of Modern Languages and English. A reception will precede the lecture in the Bondurant Lounge (second floor) at 5:30 p.m. The lecture begins at 6:30 p.m.
inside PHOTO COURTESY MISSISSIPPI TEACHER CORPS
Andy Mullins, co-founder of Mississippi Teacher Corps, speaks to a class of participants in Fall 2010. Mullins is the executive assistant to the Chancellor and a professor of education at the University of Mississippi.
Guest said. Guest said that working in a critical needs district can prove challenging for long term teachers, and most will move to a more successful district or one closer to home. “We live in a country where the quality of a person’s education is directly related to the zip code they’re born in,” Guest said. “A child born in the Delta as opposed to Oxford will not get the education they deserve.” One of the reasons MTC brings in outside students is because Mississippi has a teacher shortage; low pay and low-income districts will not draw in a large group of qualified teachers.
“I feel like a child with a better pre-college education can be better prepared for a more economically productive lifestyle,” sophomore Classics and Psychology majors James Evans said. Guest said that in any given year, there are more teacher vacancies than there are certified teachers in Mississippi. “Schools of education, which I am a part of, do a poor job of preventing potentially ineffective teachers from entering the program,” Guest said. Because of this, Guest said any teacher that is certified will be hired, regardless of whether they are good or not. “It’s very difficult for a poorly
educated population to adequately assess what is wrong with it, and that’s what is happening now,” Guest said. Guest said he believes that possibly more than one-third of children are in poverty because the poverty line has not been adjusted since Lyndon B. Johnson initiated it during his presidency. “I commend this program because they’re looking down the road. They’re not trying to put a Band-Aid over the scar; they’re trying to stitch the scar up,” math major Josh Culley said. For more information on Mississippi Teachers Corps visit http://mtc.olemiss.edu.
NEWS
GETTING TO KNOW AL HOPE
LIFESTYLES
UM MUSEUM HOSTS FOLK ART EXHIBIT
Mahdi Alosh to speak on campus Thursday BY BLAIR JACKSON The Daily Mississippian
The 50th Annual Christopher Longest Lecture will take place Thursday at 6:30 p.m. in the Bondurant Auditorium. Professor Mahdi Alosh will fly in from Syria to speak at the lecture about the negative stereotypes often given to Arabs and Muslims in the United States. “My objective is not only to provide knowledge, but also a reason or an incentive to change perspectives if possible,” Alosh said. The average person blindly denounces all Arabs and Muslims as evil, Alsoh added. He referenced an Arabic prov-
erb that says “One is the enemy of what he does not know.” In his lecture, he wishes to grant knowledge and hopefully reshape perceptions of the Middle East. Alosh is a former professor of Arabic and associate dean at the United States Military Academy. He is also an oral proficiency tester of Arabic and a grant proposal evaluator for the United States Department of Education and Department of Defense. Alosh said that he is excited to interact with Ole Miss students, dents at the University of Mississippi. Donald Dyer, chair of the See ALOSH, PAGE 4
SPORTS
SHACKELFORD FACES HIS FORMER DREAM TEAM
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