Education Students Lead Literacy Activities With Inner City Children — National Grants Allow Purchase of Multicultural Children’s Books Forty third-graders from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Charter School of Excellence in Springfield spent the morning of November 29, 2007 at Elms College as guests of the students in education professor Anne Harrison’s “Introduction to Education” classes. The Elms students delighted the children with books and activities consistent with the social justice and community service missions of the two schools. The visit was the culmination of a collaboration between the college and the charter school as a result of two grants to purchase multicultural children’s literature books for the libraries of both institutions. A $2,000 “Teaching Tolerance” Grant from the Southern Poverty Law Center focused on children’s literature to promote social justice, and a second grant of $2,000 from Target addressed the early literacy of inner city children. With the grant funds, Anne and colleagues from the charter school selected more than 200 titles, featuring urban settings, racially diverse characters, and themes of honesty, perseverance, cooperation, respect, and responsibility. The vast majority of the books purchased are written and illustrated by persons of color, and celebrate diverse neighborhood, work, and family situations.
“It is important that the school curriculum is both a window and a mirror for children,” Anne said. “Children need to see themselves reflected in the curriculum, and they also benefit from exposure to other cultures and ways of life.” The Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School of Excellence currently enrolls 240 children from inner city Springfield. Ninety-five percent of the children are African American or Hispanic American, and 83 percent qualify for free or reduced lunch according to government guidelines for family income. In addition to standards-based curricula in language arts, math, science, and social studies, the school has developed an innovative, interdisciplinary curriculum to help students understand and personify responsible and engaged citizenship, and to share in Dr. King’s ideal of beloved community. “As important as this collection of books is to the charter school children, I think it is even more important for my students, since they now have a terrific new resource as they prepare for teaching in a culturallyrich and diverse community,” said Anne. “It is my heartfelt prayer that they become teachers who embrace the power of schools to change lives, to unify society, and to create the beloved community Dr. King envisioned. These books are just a start.”
THEATRE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE CHRISTENS NEW BLACK BOX THEATER The Elms College Theatre for Social Justice christened the new Black Box Theater in the Mary Dooley College Center on December 5, 6, and 7, 2007 with presentations called Wild Tyme, a series of classic short plays from the Theatre of the Absurd. The featured play was The Lesson, written in l951 by French dramatist Eugene Ionesco. The performances were in the new Black Box Theater, formerly Doyle Theater, which has been unused for years. Led by Dr. James (Jim) Gallant, director of the Theatre for Social Justice, students and staff spent weeks renovating the space for use as a studio theater and new home for the theater troupe. “Finally, after years of being sort of roving minstrels, our company and our theatre students have a home,” said Jim. “It’s ours,
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Dr. Gallant welcomed the audience to the new Black Box Theater.
and we love it, especially since my students helped create and transform this theatre out of a leaky, dank, depressing storage room.” Jim said the new Black Box Theater is one more step in the process of revitalizing the theatre program here at Elms, which he undertook in 2001. “The Black Box Theater is a key part of the new theatre program at Elms,” said Jim. “We have a new theatre minor, and now theatre classes can be held in this space. And, most importantly, it allows Elms College Theatre for Social Justice to perform in a venue appropriate to the sorts of plays we do – it is intimate, acoustically and visually satisfying, and lends the intimate setting we have always wanted in the past.”
A scene from The Lesson
ELMS COLLEGE MAGAZINE