The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 15

Saturday, Sept 24. 1988 The Philadelphia Inquirer 3-B Seminar aids social workers in Hispanic community By Miguel Cervantes Sahagun Inquirer Stall Writer The Rev. William Green admits that he has often been perplexed by the customs and values of the Hispanic families he has worked with as a health outreach worker. But after attending a seminar aimed at sensitizing social service providers who serve the Hispanic community, the pastor of Philip Memorial Methodist Church in South Philadelphia says he now has a better understanding of those families and of Hispanic cultures. Mr.

Green, who works with Hispan-ics with drug problems, said he now understands why "parents will not relinquish their children knowing that they may offer a risk to the rest of the family because of their addiction They will still protect them and keep them in the household the general community. "One thing I try to do is eliminate the stereotypes," said Esbri-Amor, who noted that some people believe "that every Puerto Rican has a knife in his pocket. I don't know where it all started." "Americans tend to be so arrogant. They tend to think that their way is the only way," said Natalie Baldwin, a children's specialist for the Philadelphia Free Library. Panelists also discussed how conflicting values can create conflict among Hispanics and non-Hispanics.

For example, Hispanics tend to view relationships as formal and longlasting, while for most Americans, they often are informal and temporary due to mobility and change, several panelists noted. Family structure also is different, because Hispanics tend to live in that workers in government offices and other agencies don't speak ish and have difficulty understanding them. On the other hand, she said, Hispanics often don't take advantage of community services that are available to help them. She said that six years ago she conducted a survey of the Puerto Rican community in Lancaster County to ascertain its needs. The results clearly indicated, she said, that the Puerto Ricans and the agencies that served them saw issues from different perspectives.

She said the survey results led to the formation of the Hispanic Human Services Committee, which focuses on two main issues: helping new arrivals learn "the system" and adjust to life in the United and teaching Hispanic cultures to Trying to transform the teaching of math Phila. man gets life sentence for role in killing "We're up against a tradition of teaching math that doesn't work," says Robert Davis of Rutgers University. The family is a very important unit in the Latin community, and the extended family as well." Mr. Green was among 160 people from government and social agencies, hospitals and community organizations who had a crash course in culture and cultural sensitivity spon-: sored by the Mayor's Commission on Puerto RicanLatin Affairs. The seminar was part of a series of events sponsored by the Puerto Rican Week Festival Inc.

lrma Lopez-Salter, executive director of the commission, said that Puer-. to Rican and other Hispanic communities are growing fast in this area and that because of cultural and language barriers they often encounter problems in their dealings with government and social service agencies. She estimated that Philadelphia has a Hispanic population of 125,000, game. Davis' lectures are a series ofques-tions rather than instructions. He tells students to break off into small groups to figure out a problem and then he encourages them to call out answers.

"They're being asked to think, instead of being told, 'Do this and do I want them to assume some of the responsibility. A lot of students feel it's the teacher's responsibility to teach them," he said. "What we're trying to get across is that math is not just about meaningless symbols, but about real things." His biggest complaint is that math education relies too heavily on the rote learning of formulas. Students are hard-pressed to explain why they are using a particular formula. Ron Larkin, superintendent of New Brunswick's schools and a former math teacher, said he believes this is one reason why students find math difficult and dull they never really understand it.

"You can tell a student to divide a fraction and they can do it. But if you ask them why Ithey did what they didl, invariably they will not know the reason. They say, 'My teacher taught me to do it that he said. The Rutgers-New Brunswick Mathematics Project, started this month, will bring instructors from Middlesex County College into the schools during the next three years. It represents the second time that Rutgers has gone into a New Jersey school district to help revamp mathematics education.

The university has trained teachers in the small Union County district of Kenilworth to teach math differently. Fred Rica, principal of Kenil-worth's only elementary school, Harding Elementary, said the project has been a big success. "Test scores have improved significantly," he said, "and students have a better attitude toward math." Now, students give up their lunchtime or stay after school to work on math projects something that was unheard of before. Initially, "we were not welcomed with open arms by Kenilworth teachersl," said Carolyn Maher, an associate professor of mathematics education at Rutgers Graduate School of Education. "To say what they were doing wasn't right was incredibly disarming." xililiM1 lllllMllflrt A' By Connie O'Kane Special to The Inquirer A Philadelphia man was sentenced to life in prison yesterday for his role in a Palmyra, N.J., robbery that ended in murder.

Under the sentence, Ronald "Randy" Wright, 25, of the 6700 block of Smedley Street, will have to serve at least 35 years before he is eligible for parole. Wright was convicted by a Burlington County jury July 22 of killing Clifford Snyder 20, of Maple Shade. Although Wright was not the triggerman, he was found guilty of murder because the robbery he had helped plan led to the slaying. Noting that Wright might not get out of jail until he is 60, Burlington County Superior Court Judge Cornelius P. Sullivan said, "It's really a tragic waste of your life.

But I think the crime you committed is very serious." Sullivan also noted that Wright had already been sentenced on rape charges. His New Jersey sentence will not start until he is done serving a four- to eight-year sentence for rape in the state prison in Camp Hill, Pa. According to Assistant Prosecutor James Gerrow, Wright worked at the Arco Station on Route 73 and knew when large amounts of money would extended families as opposed to nuclear families. The panelists also told participates that Hispanic parents expect obedience and respect from their children, while non-Hispanic childridn may be encouraged to participate; jn adult conversation and decisionmaking. ,1 Joe Gray, who works in the citjfs AIDS Activities Coordinating Offi said he once had a bad experienee with a Hispanic husband after talking with the man's wife about a problem.

He said the seminar helped him realize that he should have spoken with the man first or should have taken a woman with him if the husband was away. Gray said he now had a greater understanding of Latin "machismo" and the family structure. be present at the station. Wright allegedly planned the robbery with his cousin, Robert Cook, 25, of the 5300 block of Yocum Avenue, who is aso charged in the murder. They drove to the gas station from Philadelphia and once there, Wright waited outside as Cook went in, armed with a gun, Gerrow said.

According to Gerrow, Cook said fie wanted to fill out a job application and then pulled the gun. He the station's employees to the back room. Snyder, who was the last employee to go back, was shot afterthe gunman apparently thought Snyder could recognize him. According to witnesses. Cook put the gun to Snyder's head and pulled the trigger.

Other robbery victims testified that the gunman told them, "I just shot one of you. Have a nice day." After the robbery, Cook and Wright celebrated by tossing the stolen money around and rolling on the floor, according to testimony in the trial. Authorities said Cook has been convicted of a murder in Philadelphia and charged with two more slayings in Philadelphia. If convicted in Burlington County, he could face the death penalty. Wright's attorney, Kenneth E.

Smith, said he did not know if Wright would appeal. had a job waiting for him and an apartment." She said that a government official was supposed to be waiting for him when he arrived but that "when he got here, nobody was waiting." She said her son told her that the State Department now denied making any offers. "Now that they are back here, is being denied," she said. "It's beginning to look like a cloak-and-dagger movie to me. He's just the victim of a hoax, I think." In Washington, State Department spokesman Charles Redman said the U.S.

Embassy in Moscow offered the Branches only the same service available to any citizen abroad, which is a repatriation loan to help transport them to the nearest port of entry in the United States. The Branches never followed up on their initial visit to the embassy, Redman said. Duke Austin, spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said the couple did not lose their citizenship when they emigrated to the Soviet Union and were free to do as they pleased. He said the U.S. government had no particular interest in their case, unless a government agency has reason to believe that the couple had access to sensitive information during their stay in the Soviet Union.

Austin said he understood that Theodore Branch had been "making calls claiming he was going to be arrested" on arrival. He said those fears were groundless. Austin, citing television reports, said he understood that Branch was planning to go to Pennsylvania. Couple are reported back from U.S.S.R. the biggest in the state, followed by Reading, with 23,000.

Her agency often lends its own Spanish-speaking employees to assist other government agencies when they have to deal with Hispanic issues, she said. "If they don't have Spanish speaking personnel this Iseminar will help theml deal with the Hispanic community," she explained. Among the seminar panelists were Samuel Betances, professor of sociology at Northeastern Illinois University; Loida Esbri-Amor of the Governor's Council on Hispanic Community Affairs, and Lillian Esco- bar-Haskins, director of the New Directions Career Counseling Program for Displaced Homemakers and Single Parents, in Lancaster County. Esbri-Amor said that Hispanics in Lancaster County often complain JL I Using an overhead projector, 'With seven elementary schools and a high school, as well as three parochial schools participating, New Brunswick presents an even greater challenge. Many of New Brunswick's students are black and Hispanic and come from poor urban neighborhoods.

"There is a tremendous suspicion tin the education community about whether this kind of thing will work in an urban school," said Maher. "Most people are not very optimistic about urban schools." Larkin said he is concerned about the low percentage of urban students that go on to become engineers or work in other technical fields. "They shy away from it, thinking it's something hard or difficult," he said. There is also a widespread attitude, particularly in city high schools, that 1 math is not cool, said Davis. "Being cool means you just sit there and take it," he said.

"As long as kids are the makeshift courtroom. Friends and relatives of defendants could get no farther than the outer lobby of the building, where the regular courtroom is located. There, weary defendants released on bail grumbled about conditions in the cellblock, known as "the tank." "I was down there 27 hours," said James' Ashton of Mount Airy, who signed his own bail. "You can't walk, you step on people. You get two sandwiches a day.

Everybody sleeps on the floor. It was really horrible." Th Philadelphia Inquirer B.F. BINIK I- By Laura Quinn Inquirer Staff Writer During his first weeks as a math teacher at New Brunswick High School this month, Robert Davis kept a meticulous journal. His entry for Sept. 15: "Today, I was delighted with the class.

I began by asking them if it made any difference whether they figured things out for themselves, or whether someone told them. James, who had not done much previously, said: 'If you don't have confidence in yourself, you won't try very Hooray!" He has a doctorate in mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wears running shoes and casual short-sleeves to class and doesn't have much interest in discipline. He has taught graduate courses and written books. Why is Davis teaching a high school algebra class? His class diary is a partial explanation. Take the entry for Sept.

9, after Davis, 62, gave the class a new worksheet: "This did not go well; probably my sheet was not entirely clear but I think a large measure of the blame has to go to the expectations that many of these children have regarding school. They don't expect to have to think very much. They do expect to follow explicit, minute directions." Davis recently became Rutgers University's first New Jersey Professor of Mathematics Education, and his presence in this classroom is the result of an unusual degree of collaboration between the university and a local school district. For 30 years, Davis, working at several universities, has developed new methods of teaching math to young people and this New Brunswick class is his latest laboratory. By the end of the year, he hopes his students will grasp basic algebra better than the typical student their age and that they actually like math.

Ultimately, Rutgers hopes to help transform the way math is taught in all of New Brunswick's schools and to develop a national model for teaching math to elementary and secondary school students. "We're up against a tradition of teaching math that doesn't work," said Davis, after wrapping up a class one day last week. In many ways, he teaches as if he and his students were participating in an abstract Emergency By Amy S. Rosenberg Inquirer Stall Writer A rare emergency session of Municipal Court was convened last night at the Police Administration Building after the cramped cellblock became jammed with nearly 200 prisoners awaiting arraignment. "There's no room at the inn down there," said President Judge Alan K.

Silberstein. "My understanding is that some of them have been there as long as 36 hours, and that's not right." Police said a general increase in Special to The Inquirer MIKE PLUNKETT Robert Davis teaches algebra. like that, they are not going to become engineers." Urban students generally score lower than their suburban counterparts on the state High School Proficiency Test, particularly on the math portion of the exam. The test is given to ninth graders every year, and any who don't pass, must take it again every year until they do, or forgo a high school diploma. According to some educators, the test has encouraged the kind of rote teaching that Davis objects to.

Students become geared to learning only the formulas needed to pass the test. "As long as people look at test scores, we're in trouble," said Davis, who over the years has worked on similar projects in schools in Philadelphia, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Syracuse, N.Y., and at the University of Illinois in Urbana. "There are so many bad ways to make test scores go up." Crowded conditions in the grimy cellblock and the typical 24-hour wait for arraignment were the subjects of a federal class-action lawsuit filed in July by the city's Defender Association. At that time, Police Commissioner Willie Williams said significant progress had been made in reducing processing time.

Silberstein, who ordered the extra session yesterday afternoon, said he could remember only one other time in more than a decade when an extra session of court was convened. Associated Press ERIE Theodore and Cheryle Branch, the Erie County couple who emigrated to the Soviet Union last fall, have returned to the United States and contend they were promised a job and an apartment by the U.S. government, Theodore Branch's mother said yesterday. Lavera Branch of Summit Township said her son called her about 7 a.m. from a hotel in Washington and told her the U.S.

Embassy in Moscow had offered him a job in the United States if he and his wife returned home. She would not disclose the name of the hotel. A State Department spokesman said the government could not confirm that the couple were in the United States. They could not be reached for comment. Theodore Branch, 43, and Cheryle Hoffman Branch, 40, visited the Soviet Embassy in Washington last fall and went to the Soviet Union in October, saying they had received promises of a job and an apartment.

Branch said the Soviet Union made good on its promise of financial security at a time when he could not find steady work in the United States and he and his wife were broke. Lavera Branch said her son reported that the couple had a nice apartment in the Soviet Union and that both he and his wife had jobs. "He said they were treated very nice there," she said. Lavera Branch said her son told her that U.S. officials had begun talking to him in February or March.

"They finally talked him into coming back," she said. "After all, this is his country. They finally decided to come back after they were told he court called for packed cellblock arrests had contributed to an overload in bail processing. So for several hours last night, Bail Commissioner Frank Rebstock sat on a stage and arraigned prisoners in a makeshift courtroom in a first-floor auditorium near the cafeteria. Prisoners walked up a back staircase and then took seats in the front row to await arraignment.

At the same time, Bail Commissioner Garnita Selby arraigned prisoners in the regular courtroom. No spectators were allowed inside Salute to German-Americans set today 13 arrested in Chesco drug probe The Steuben Day Parade Philadelphia's 18th annual Steuben Day Parade, which honors German-Americans, steps off at 12:15 p.m. today at 20th Street and the Parkway. The procession including 25 floats and 20 American marching bands as well as several from Germany will, march down the Parkway to 17th Street, turn south to Chestnut Street and then proceed east to Independence Hall. Other parade attractions will be military units and German-American groups in ethnic costumes.

A quartcr-mile-long American flag, the longest on record, will be carried by 200 troops from Fort Dix. A service and reception at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul on Logan Circle will be held at 10 a.m. The parade is held each year in honor of Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a Prussian officer who helped shape the Continental Army into an effective fighting force during the American Revolution. By Robert McSherry Special to The Inquirer Police in Chester County arrested 13 men on drug charges yesterday, including three sets of brothers, as a result of a four-month undercover narcotics investigation, authorities said.

Detectives with the Chester County District Attorney's Office said the 13 men were independent street-level dealers from the central section of the county. They said 12 of the men had sold cocaine either to undercover members of the county's drug strike force or to state agents with the Attorney General's Office. One man was arrested for selling marijuana, detectives said. At 6 a.m. yesterday, detectives said, about 50 police officers from several Chester County municipalities began rounding up the suspects.

Most of the men were arrested at their homes, tives said, and all 13 were in custody by about 10 a.m. Authorities identified the brothers, all charged with cocaine sales, as Drew Proctor, 27, and Dwayne Proctor, 20, both of Church Street, Downingtown; Luigi Sarmento, 28, and Patrick Sarmento, 24, both of Jackson Avenue, Downingtown; and Lamont Wilkerson, 34, of Jefferson Avenue, Downingtown, and Clarence Wilkerson 42, of the Whiteland West Apartments, West Whi-teland Township. Detectives said the other six men arrested on cocaine charges yesterday were Thomas Pealer, 34, of Guthriesville Road, Andrew N. Thomas, 21, of Prospect Avenue, Gregory Powell, 34, of Cox Alley, Horace Wilson, 28, of St. Joseph's Road, all of Downingtown; and Robert Moncavage, 28, of Penn Avenue, Coatesville, and Harry D.

Moody, 47, of Skelp Level Road, East Bradford. Samuel Smith 23, of Church Street, Downingtown, was charged with selling marijuana, police said. ffiSfllJli ilWljN II II II II II II Vine St. jfk Bivdi LLjreri Egbert sonnnnr inn nri rwq LJ L-Market st, 1.73 Spruce St WWWWOOW 53 4.