News Scrapbook 1970-1972

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EVENING TRIBUNE

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San Diego, Thursday, January 27, 1972

F • m,ly Today

'WE'RE TRYING TO COMBAT HE CYCLE OF FAILURE'

Tutoring team helps Indians play catch-up

•CLASS IFIED

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By DARLA WEI.LES In tre meetmg room of a country churclJ, barelv warmed by a n,au heat<'r, Pde Pitard sat on the co 1c•c e floor pronouncing \OCabulary \\ords to tlrn dark-eyed Indian girls A curly-h, rred boy pondered a prob- lem rn 'ong divison at a ncarb) tab!¢ "'IUle his tutor Jan Schollenberger helped two others answer quesl!ons m s< ool 1\orkbook. Aero s the room, D1ara Craft w 1!11· circled by a half-dozen boy and ls e gerly p rtic1pating in a word gaitie Their r<>ward for each correct a er 11 a a mall pil.-ce of cancfy. At every comer of the room tfo 11 act1vitr - some of it voca, and hi) c01rpetitl\e ard some of ,• qmetly ln· tt. all of it generated by the earn- mg proce s. The c'iildren, rang ng from ele mentary through high school age are all ycur" ters, who 'or Var) ing reasons, ha\C n been h1gtl)' mot v ted by the c n, tiona ducatmn.i: program of th 0 nr sch ls t a nd The r C0rl1" mon bond 1 th01r cultu1 I h ta ,,. Th 1 .re ull ml•mbers of ti Rm n Band of Mi wn Indian •es1d•..., on the Ru.con Indian Re ervc1t1on north of E condidc There \\ere about t o doz n of 'hem c m ded into the re erv..uor mod t church for wtat has become a weekly occmTence 01·er the past year and .i half - tuton: g se sions with a group of 1olunt ers from the Unnerr > ol Sa~ Diego The tutonng . ns a but one phase of the univer it> s multifaceted American Indian C.omrr:m1ty D Hl- opment P1-oiect. The t orrng part of the mo.5tly feder- ally funded project as begun !I the fall of 1970 P1tard, 29, a graduate student at l '>D and his \\1fc Mary Ellen. 24. a formt teacht'r, have been with th project from the start. Pitard now heads the group of tutor<, and s rves as proJect supen1 or Bnnging the proiect to the level '\\ here it 1s now has been a long hard pull Pitard said. "We started last year with Just a ha ul of c: ldren." he said. ". ow we have 2-l to 30 every week. The most dJf1cult part at first 11as settmg a tone. We didn t kno11 how to act toward them and they didn't know how to Lnt • we.rd u It took us a good part or last ear to get that v;orked out. \\ e needed tu ',t them k .:,w that \\e mean busm ) •t ue don't want a st111ctured cl' roon atmosphere • What v.e're tryi: to comba IS the (') cle of confu on, failure c. d 4'ustra• tio that they ha\e enc0untrred m therr c t' al cla!c room exp ne cc. • 1 ett fhe' succc ful,'" ne aid. • And we try to i re succc s. We give them wcrk at a level v.hich is attainable to them We may g \ e them work Just a L'tl btlow their achievement level or JUst a ·t•le abov , but always v.1thin reacli. That way they c..n have succe , r nforce thell' unage of themsehes as bemg suc- crssf ..:J. "They've become excited about learning,'' he said, "and in turn we're exc. ed. "The core of the proiert is its spontaneity and informality," Pitard s~d. "We, as tutors, are not there as teachers or as adults, but rather as friends who are there to 1:telp. And al- though it's all very mforrnal, the kids realize we're not just pals. They know that we're all tliere to v. ork and accom- pli~h something." Bach session is broken mto t1rn ~e~- ments The first .s de\ oted to \\0rkmg v. h the children on problems they may be having with their srhool11ork, such as reading difficulbes or mathe- matical problems. The second half of the evening is given over to working in a less formal atmosphere, playing word games or working with puzzles or patterns to develop perceptual skills, Pitard said. Spinach-hating kids had the right idea all the time RO IE (UPI\ - Children who hate spinach like poison may h~ ve gotten to lilt pomt faster than se1ence did. A d etary COll'llh'tee of the U ~- Food and Agriculture Organization says m a report •..:st released that the breakdown of certain chemicals in spinach can cause methaemoglobi- naenua -a form of blood poisoning - m infants. Several delegations to the conference held m Bonn said spinach should be banned for babies less than three months because nitrates in fre h and quick frozen spinach could break down to &:.trites - which could ci.use the blood pr 1soning The U.S. delegation noted that the- problem does not apply to canned spin- ach, which has been widely used for generations. Toe commission turned down a con- sumers union request that warnings be printed on the labels of spinach con- tainers saying the vegetable was un ;uit- able for the very young Infant. Instead 1t recomrnended that spmach be eaten immediately after it is cooked, or after the container is opened, and unused portions be dis- carded.

frs Bi.I Scholl nb r ian Torte at Rinco

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~year-old Lor-

Ind n Re.ervation.

.INSPIRATIO. -St. 's leamu g and that' spiring to volunteers who tuto. Indian children like nandez, 8.-Evening Tribune Staff Photo by Jcri-y Rife

xdtim;. It's al o in-

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aid Ma'"y El'en P •:ird 'We should be ab! dren acco1 Cl II to g could corr more o l n :I wit around th th1l

J Iw B nedict, admm1s- trator, ke ;is a nand r: all pha es of its oper tic s, including going witli the tu- tors to some of their sess10ns v. h e •he, herself, takes part in the tutonng ,rnrk "T p ogram 1 tv; proni;ed,' e <-.aid "It inc ude~ acquaintm th tu tors with methods and procedures for deaJ:n 0 1tn mmorit; children. The In- dian childre11, of course, are accidental bt ncf1cm•ies of tl'e pro{;ram in that they l?arn while our students learn.'' Well over half of the tutors are gr d- ua _ st •s at LSD Tl'e balance are undergraduates, wives of tutor or stu- dents who have become invol\oed through parl-tilllC st•1dies at the univer- sity. Vll"guua Morgan 25, is a teacher at Hale Jumor High School. She was drawn into the program after talcmg two summer courses at USO. "This is much more rewarding than classroom teaching,'' she said. "It is indi\1dua ized. Yoli can start out with the stude ts where they are instead of Js:ng standardized approaches. You can help them with skills they have m1SSed ou, or Their response has been except10na[) \\arm. They're \CI) ea- ger and proud to show how well they can do." Enthusiasm and optimism are en- trenched m the program. But along vi''h the bright outlook comes a re liza- tion of limitation and how much more work lies ahead. •·we need better facilities, more room, more peop1e and more mone) ," proJect to obta.n an abortion in Cal'-'ornia than almo t any place in the United States, bt( ilJr,rtion laws liberalized fou ye rs ago have not turned the state into an abort"m mill, statistics ha,·e revealed Some 135,000 women obtained a legal abortion in the state last year, com- pared with an estimated 120 000 v;ho underwent illegal operations before the Jaw was changed in 1967. And although California has no reSJ- dency requirement for an abortion, sta- tistics compiled by the National Famil) Planning Cow1c1l indicated a. few as 8% of the abo11ions were performed on out-of-state women. The year-long study of some 14,000 women, believed to be the largest e\'er made of II omen seeking an abortion, showed that despite the ease of obtain- ing one, le s than 50% of women fared with a i)roblem pregnancy eventually chose to terminate 1t. Newton E. Dieter, executive dircctOr ri the non-profit organization endorsed by the county health department said of 9,391 womeri II ho first considrred tht operation, only 44%' actually went through with it '·Our figures show that the emotion- al, almost hysterical claims of mass murder and the destruction of the fam-

looked

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tJiem separ •el;- And I v. i h \ t;

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week th n we t uld do mor rn lhe wa o 110• 1vat10 " She nodded to ard a teen• 'e lioy nearby v.ho ,1 !Jent ove a t of the others. hw of tt1_:n Jlave wor ung r,a , • 'llltJ ha1 e little opportt:. ..ity to see ho v a b tt r education could il"lprove the h, cs. That II'"kcs It hard to mo~1vate them especially when we can only work v.Jth them once a v. eek " But the work goes on and the proj ct grows with actile support of the par- ents on the reservation an an C\ cr- iucreasing staff of tutors. 'So far most of the tutors have come from the education department at the umvers1ty" Pitard said. But we're expanding beyona that now Eve•'! on of our deans ,s planm g to slari help- mg out. "At ti' \ pomt the tJtors are all m on a •rictly volunteer basis. Th y 1e paid a I tie - about 7.20 a week - but the) get a class credit. "I think we'll probably keep it that v., «y so that we can continue to get tu- tors who are really interested in doing this -1he ones who will continue to try fresh approaches to give these children more enthusiasm fir learning." 1ly unit through a'lort1on are ground- less," Diell Sc.id. Under Califorr- a law, a woman may u1 dergo a t'icrapeutic abortion, per- formed by a medical doctor in a hosp1t.:d or clime, if she bas been the v1ct1m of rape or inerst or if 1110 physicians con- cur 'he birth would be mjurious to the physical or mental health of the moth- er No psychiatric exam is required by lalV to prove mental stress, and abor- tion counselors ay the consent of a doc•or has become a rubber stamp procedure. A spoke ]nan for the di t11ct attor- ney's office ag--eed that California had become one of the easiest stateo 111 •he union, along with ;'l;ew York and \\asll- ington, to obtain an abortion. The council's year-long study went into the age, m· rital status, education- al ba<:kground, economic status, and use of alcohol and drug, of the mothers. The averave woman studied was an unmariied lugh school graduate from the middle income bracket use ol dn,-rs or alcohol was rnimmal, with only 17 admitting use of hard nar- c.at ics and 195 use of m,,rijuana Reasons cited for seeking lo end the pregnancy included youth, sing! 1a- tus, and inab:lity lo support the chJld. Some married women said they could not support another child. I

00 . J:1 ;nt TI O. ·-It' a puzzle, all right. Ralph Bojorquez, 13, watches as cl ssmate

Raphael Duro, also 13, figul'E's it out. Tutoring sessions are held m a church on reservation.

STUDY REVEALS STAT/ST/CS State not abortion mill despite liberalized law LOS A.: GJ:::LES rUPI - It is ea ier

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·-n• not th , but tt

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froJ1 the l:"nivC'rsity of San Diego, want to be fri~d , rather than tcachc . Children attend- ingcia are from Rmcon Indian Reservation.

room to be working. Tutors, like Bill Schollenbcrger, all volunteers (J{'ri n m

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