Nov. 20, 2000, 8:31PM
3 Teachers Continue Lessons on Diversity in their Curricula
By HEATHER SAUCIER
Copyright 1999 Special to the Chronicle
In the opinion of three Houston-area teachers, limiting classrooms to academics might educate students' brains, but it neglects their hearts.
So, they have designed their lesson plans around what they believe are life's most important lessons: understanding and respect.
Deborah Hill of Cypress Springs High School in Cypress-Fairbanks, Bea Ramirez Svambera of La Porte Junior High School in La Porte, and Michaelann Kelley of Eisenhower High School in Aldine say they are in the business of educating the whole child.
The teachers were honored last year by the Anti-Defamation League for their commitment to hailing diversity and combating prejudice in the classroom. The teachers say they are continuing to weave life's lessons into their curricula.
In addition to teaching art at Eisenhower, Kelley teaches students the rewards of making new friends.
"We don't want to have any outsiders at our school," said Kelley, who has helped bridge gaps between cultural and social cliques.
Kelley began her mission when Eisenhower received an Annenberg Foundation grant, which required the diverse student body to be better integrated. As the grant coordinator, Kelley helped implement the Classroom of Difference diversity-training program developed by the ADL.
For 30 minutes a week, members of the student council, the football team, special education classes and others meet in small groups and are given the opportunity to talk to peers they otherwise might not talk to.
Kelley said the students share personal facts and discuss topics such as self-esteem and goal setting.
The program has been in use for just over a year. "It's really built a better bond between teachers and students," Kelley said. "Some of our worst dissenters are now our strongest advocates."
Kelley said she has noticed kids helping Spanish-speaking students with their English and downplaying racial stereotypes.
"It's an integral part of our curriculum," she said. "It was a way of making the school a much more friendlier place."
La Porte's Svambera uses her history classes to teach respect and understanding.
Her philosophy is simple: If people better understood other cultures, they would be less likely to alienate those with differences.
Svambera teaches the nooks and crannies of her students' cultures in her Texas and American history classes and Junior Historians elective class, which allows students to be docents at museums and perform in plays with historical themes.
Walk through her two classrooms -- which resemble museums -- and her ebullience for culture is obvious. Students are welcome to explore arrowheads made by American Indians and deportation posters of Jews wearing yellow stars.
"We didn't have classes where you learned to accept your race," said Svambera about her schooling as a child. "To not teach a child about the history and different cultures of people is to rob them."
In her classes, Svambera highlights the plights of American Indians, blacks, Hispanics and Jews. She emphasizes to students that if minority races had been better understood, suffering might not have occurred.
"If you haven't learned anything about those cultures, you're bound to repeat the mistakes of the past," she said.
Tory Poullard, 13, said: "I've learned things about not just my culture but about other people's culture, too."
While Svambera chooses to highlight many races in her classroom, American history teacher Hill concentrates her efforts on the Holocaust and the plight of the Jews.
Unlike many teachers who spend a minimal amount of class time on the World War II tragedy, Hill of Cypress Springs takes two weeks to educate students about the event.
"I get resistance from others who say we shouldn't spend so much time on the Holocaust," Hill said. "Yes, it's depressing, but look at what we can learn from this. The spirit these people had to survive that. I just find that so admirable."
Using a Houston Holocaust Museum "Holocaust trunk" for which she wrote the curriculum, Hill shows students a variety of videos and assigns reading on the tragedy. .
She said she stresses the humanness of the victims more than historical facts to make deeper imprints on students' minds.