The Star Press from Muncie, Indiana • Page 23

o) Books 4 Sunday, Febaiary21, 1999 Contact: Larry L. Shores Phone: 747-5751 Fax 747-5748 e-mail: lettersthestarpress.com TheStarPress siss remarks I am convinced that if we can offer each and every student the opportunity for something either outside of or in addition to the formal classroom, we can give them a better reason to get out of bed in the morning and to stay in school. u7 make our educational institutions more educational 'ft Tfiri Pjr- a M-S I 1 Mi-. II It Kk. 'i.

1 i vTAi At i 1 1 1 1 it i vx i imk )1W I loSim ff MC Changes could By TERRY NELSON 0 any public school, all needs of the rich diversity of students can never be met. That doesn't mean, however, that programs and the way the school is run can't be dramatically improved through evaluation, idea sharing and some measure of risk taking. With the release of the ISTEP scores and the debate on their use in determining graduation eligibility, speculation arises on whether or not public high schools are meeting or can meet the needs of their broad student populations. Dropout rates are increasing in some cases, and graduation rates are lower than they should be. Fingers of blame are easy to point, but easy answers are difficult to find.

First the good news. As I look around Muncie Central High School I see some really strong reasons why students would want to attend and graduate from this school. One such reason is the number of students who are involved in one or more of the school's athletic programs. No one can deny the strong tradition and feeling of pride that students inolved in the basketball program receive. That same pride is experienced by members of the state- and nationally-ranked volleyball team.

Also apparent is the excitement In expansion of sports teams notably the new girls' soccer team this fall and the boys' volleyball team planned for this spring. Students involved in these sports activities are lucky indeed. They enjoy the camaraderie of teammates, the role modeling of their coaches and assistants, the cheers of parents and classmates who come to games, and the press coverage they receive in the student and local newspapers and sometimes on the radio. Later in their high school careers, scholarships to college are a possibility. These students are lucky indeed.

They are special. Equally special are students involved in extracurricular programs at school. Imagine the thrill of being in a school play that is produced in an auditorium that can seat 1,000. What an ego boost must it be for members of the school's jazz band or swing choir who perform for the public in and out of school. For students Involved In the Multicultural Student Union, planning and acquiring acts for the annual Extravaganza must be an exciting project.

For foreign language students, imagine the fun of eating out in an authentic French restaurant, attending a Spanish I 1 n. U. fill 1 I j' yjr. i I jy 'iWj i.i By THE STAR PRESS STAFF Suspension protest prompts camera seizure MUNCIE Freedom of wrestling wasn't the only Issue raised Friday at Delta High School. Several student photographers at Delta complained that freedom of the press had been violated during Friday morning's rally protesting the suspension of wrestler Lucas Ratz.

Senior Joey Burden and sophomore Sarah Price said they had tried to take pictures of the rally for the yearbook and the school newspaper, respectively. In both cases, they were told by school administrators they could not take photos, the students said. After his camera had been confiscated, Burden received permission to photograph the event, so he obtained another camera, he said. Price said she refused to give up her camera or film and was held in the office for more than 2 hours. Tom Gourley, administrative assistant of Delaware Community Schools, said the issue was that students were not allowed to take their own cameras to school, rather than that they were taking pictures of the rally.

Burden said he had never heard of a rule against having personal cameras on campus, adding that students In photography class had their own cameras. "I just saw a photo opportunity and ran and got my camera," said Price, whose father, Tom Price, teaches photojournalism at Ball State University. Welcome mat out, but colors changed YORKTOWN The Mount Pleasant Township Community School Board knows how to welcome a new superin-i tendent. After announcing at the 16 meeting that Cowan Community Schools Supt. Larry John had accepted the Mount Pleasant post, board President Tom Stewart introduced John, who was seated at the back of the room.

Rising from his seat, John told the board: "I look forward to being here. Of course, you haven't voted yet. Having proceeded with the vote to make John's hiring official, board members later offered Individual welcomes to John. Even though John won't shift from Cowan to Yorktown until July, board member David Stiff-ler offered some advice on preparing for the change. We bleed green over here, not black and gold," SUffler said, "so please make that adjustment as soon as possible." Two decades later, they're running again MUNCIE James P.

Carey and Alan Wilson will stage a reunion of sorts but not a rematch in this year's city election. Carey, a Democrat, is seeking an at-large seat on Muncie City Council. Wilson will be the Republican nominee for Muncie City Court judge. The two men squared off in memorable mayoral campaigns In 1979 and 1983. Wilson won the first contest; Carey claimed the second.

Carey went on to win a second term as mayor in 1987 and lost mayoral bids in 1991 and 1995. Until this week, Wilson's post-mayoral political activity had been limited to a 1990 campaign for county prosecutor. Carey wouldn't be the first Muncie mayor to later win election to the council. Muncle's first mayor, John Brady, was elected to the council 3 years after he left the mayor's office in 1867. Charles Kilgore, mayor from 1879 to 1881, was later elected to three terms on council.

Wilson would be the third former mayor to become a Judge. Republicans Frank Ellis and Leonidas Guthrie were both elected to the Circuit Court bench after their terms as mayor. No local law forbids provocative gesture HARTFORD CITY Hartford City Police Department Sgt. Tom Baker testified last week that Van J. Smith had greeted him with an upraised middle finger while passing his patrol car soon alter Baker and another officer had hauled Smith off to jail.

During cross-examination, Smith's attorney, Jack Quirk of Muncie, wanted to know whether Hartford City had an ordinance against "giving someone the finger." "No," Baker said. The Blackford County Court bench trial continued, and Smith was found guilty of forcibly resisting arrest more than a year ago. Judge John Forcum found Smith not guilty of speeding and fleeing to resist arrest. After the trial, Smith said he would sue the city for what he contended was a brutal arrest. hair.

But what about that other 30 percent of the school population those who give up and drop out, those who fail to graduate after 4 years of opportunities? What can be done for them to feel special, involved, purposeful? It is obvious. More athletic and extracurricular opportunities are needed that can provide for their social interaction. On the instructional side, it is essential that there be smaller class sizes where a teacher can reach out and make each and every student i feel special. A better teacher-pupil ratio means more individual assistance and closer personal relationships between teacher and student. High school is the last opportunity society has to reach the student who cannot read or write coherently.

Before we give our students up for lost, let's give them the best we can belore releasing them to the world. Many of these students have no reason to get up in the morning except to sit In a classroom and listen to lectures, take and fail tests, and be labeled as troublemakers. They need something else to motivate them. Currently there are no intramural sports programs for students at Central. Not everyone can make the school's basketball team, but many students would enjoy the opportunity to be a member of a co-ed volleyball team or a Wednesday evening basketball team.

Why not open the weight room and pool a couple of nights a week for students who want to have a place to meet friends and work out? Why not make stay ing alter school for aerobics, walking and jogging activities an option for students, many of whom are at loose ends before their parents get home from work. Why not expand that opportunity to adults who have paid for the public school with their tax dollars. Host an Adult Fun Night with aerobics, swimming, intramural basketball, open library and computer time, and free baby-sitting provided by the Honor Society students who need vol- unteer hours. Just as an unread book is useless, a school that is locked up at 3: 15 each day is also a waste. Instead of making it difficult for clubs to form and meet during school, why not open Student Resource Time for club meetings and activities? Move SRT to first hour and allow movement in the hallways, ping pong in the gym, study tables In the cafeteria, small group tutoring in the classroom, spirit decorating in the halls and on the windows of store merchants in town.

Encourage students to See SCHOOLS on Page 4D Indiana law also allowed escaped slaves from south of the Ohio River "to be hunted down and returned," although a law punishing anyone who helped runaways was later found unconstitutional. Goodall told about one interview with a man living on East Kirk Street In White-ley, who turned out to be the husband of Goodall's one-time Sunday School teacher. He was born into slavery in North Carolina, and at age 4 his father was sold, never to be seen again. His eight brothers and sisters also were sold, one at a time, and he never saw them again, either. He and his mother were both sold twice more within 4 years.

Later, he was emancipated and moved to Indianapolis, then to Muncie, where he eventually retired as chef at a former hotel here. Part of Goodall's motivation for the project is to put a "human face" on a lot of people whose history has been "sparsely compiled." Part Is in hopes people will feel some of what he's felt as an African-American: "anger, empathy for their plight, a great frustration that the enormity of the crime of slavery has not been acknowledged." A president whose legacy is itself in tatters has apologized for his own moral lapses. Perhaps he could apologize for the nation's. Larry Riley teaches journalism at Ball State University. His e-mail address is lrileynetdirect.net Scandal takes one more victim: race initiative 'Zjrp eter Davis illustration undertake, new friends to be made even more reasons to get out of bed and come to school.

Still others learn child-care and life skills through hands-on activities in classes. Some students use computers to design plans for automobile parts or future homes. What Central can't offer inside its own walls can be obtained through the Muncie Area Career Center where students can build houses, take apart motors and learn how to fashion the "legacy of race" In this country, and urges every American to know more about the history of race in America. Early last week, I listened to a man who's learning more about racial history here in Delaware County, and he knew a lot about the subject to begin with. Hurley C.

Goodall, former state legislator and visiting scholar at the Center for Middletown Studies, talked about "Voices from the Past." That's his book-in-progress based on interviews conducted during the Depression by federally funded writers talking with elderly local citizens all across the state. The interviews lay In storage for decades and only recently surfaced. Goodall's interest is in finding interviews done with former slaves. What's remarkable to Goodall Is how close in time we still are to slavery. He held up a picture of his own grandmother, herself born a slave in 1862.

Of former slaves interviewed, he added, "I had known some of these people as a child" Goodall was 7 In 1934. Goodall found probated wills that clearly showed slavery existing in Indiana both before and after statehood, though prohibited by law. "Benign indifference" was his explanation for how slaves could be imported by slave owners moving to Indiana. "No one opposed them," he said. "I went all through school in Muncie.

I was never taught that." play production, visiting a German town at Christmas, or building a float with Latin Club. Some students spend extra hours cleaning up the river, collecting recycled materials or helping with community i clean-up campaigns. Others work after school on a student newspaper or on the staff of a yearbook with a budget of For these fortunate students, there are club meetings to attend, projects to Larry RSLEY sity (PROUD), Students Together Omitting Prejudice (STOP). When they finished studying, they came up with 44 recommendations in seven areas such as civil rights enforcement, education and economic opportunity, and on Sept. 18, they submitted their 229-page report to the president.

The New York Times ran a short story about it on page 7. On the same day the House Judiciary Committee, over Democratic objections, voted to make public 2,600 pages of X-rated evidence Ken Starr had compiled In the Monica Lewinsky affair. Little has been heard of the report since. February's Black History Month Is appropriate for remembering the Initiative on race, perhaps. One of the presidential panel's chapters tries to confront I i i A Much of President Clinton's second-term agenda, despite his acquittal after impeachment, looks distant now.

He was once going to be the education president, the health-care president, and more. Among the casualties of his scandal will probably be the President's Initiative on Race. President Clinton was going to lead a national effort to complete the "unfinished work of our time, to lift the burden of race and redeem the promise of America," In June 1997, Executive Order No. 13050 created a commission to tell the president how to build one America for the 21st century. The commission would examine the potential for reconciling racial divide in the country.

Members spent 15 months doing just that. They canvassed the country, held forums, invited officials and citizens everywhere to enter dialogues, monitored "promising practices." They looked for anyone who tried "to build greater understanding across racial lines and overcome racial disparities." They found a lot. Hundreds of multicultural awareness programs, study circles, local community programs with names like Journey Toward Wholeness or Search for Common Ground on Race. Some had great acronyms: For Our Children in Urban Settings (FOCUS), People Reaching Out for Unity and Diver-.