Op-Ed

Child Watch: Growing Seeds for a Multicultural, Multiracial Teaching Force

Published

10 years ago

June 22, 2015

By Marian Wright Edelman
NNPA Columnist

This is the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools® program’s 20th anniversary. More than 135,000 children across the country have had an enriching CDF Freedom Schools summer or after-school experience and more than 15,000 college students and recent graduates have been trained to teach the integrated reading curriculum whose books reflect the lives of the K-12 children and youths, and give them hope. The program is a servant leadership incubator sowing seeds for two generations—the children served and the “servant leaders” who teach and serve them.

The college students most often come from the communities they serve and are role models for the children. It is hard to be or dream of what you can be if you don’t see it.

La’Mont Geddis was a member of the first class of servant leaders in 1995. Maya Angelou spoke to that small but eager group as they finished their training and participated in the first Freedom Schools graduation. La’Mont was already studying education at Howard University when he got involved with Freedom Schools, but says much of what he knows about how to care for and reach children and be a rainbow in their clouds comes from the Freedom Schools: “My long list of what I learned through Freedom Schools began with understanding poverty. I thought, initially, that poverty only had something to do with money or the lack of. I found out there is an emotional poverty, a love poverty, mental poverty, social poverty, and that’s what is comprised in our inner-city schools, impoverished children. These children are victims of poverty, and sometimes hurt people. So how do you help them and not exclude them? You know how? I learned it in Freedom School. You give them a voice. That’s what Freedom Schools help us to understand.”

Today, La’Mont is the principal of Malcolm X Elementary School located in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. and is one of the founders of the Omega Freedom School.

Barbara Cornejo, an immigrant from Chile, left college the semester before she became a Freedom Schools servant leader because of financial problems. However, the experience of teaching so many children about the importance of education helped inspire her to find a way to finish her own and become a public school teacher serving at-risk children.

Barbara eventually enrolled in a master’s program in education, administration, and policy and is now about to pursue a doctorate in curriculum and instruction. She says, “Freedom Schools taught me to believe that there was something inside of me so strong. I knew I could make a difference in myself, in my familia, in my community, my countries, my world, with hope, education, and action.”

Brandi Brown, the executive director of the longest standing Freedom School in Texas, says she learned as a young Freedom Schools teacher that the Freedom Schools mantra of believing in children so they can believe in themselves isn’t just empty words – setting high expectations for children does work.

The parent education component that is a key part of all Freedom Schools also helped her in an unexpected way when she and her husband became guardians of her husband’s 7-year-old nephew. She told the more than 2,000 servant leaders this year that just as they should encourage their students to do their very best, they should remember to always do and give their own best, too.

Rebekah Piper, a former kindergarten teacher and Freedom Schools site coordinator, program director, and curriculum consultant from Las Vegas, says her Freedom Schools experience has shaped her professional path, her special passion for multicultural children’s literature, and her own decision to pursue a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction. She told the young leaders about to begin their own Freedom Schools experience, “I encourage you to dream about the endless possibilities. The world is in your hands. Reach for it.”

Rashida Ford is a fifth grade teacher in Baltimore whose commitment to serving children runs through every part of her life. She is a graduate of Morgan State University and is enrolled in a master’s program in educational leadership at Loyola University of Maryland. Rashida says she believes every child is capable of achieving and it is the community’s responsibility to make sure every child’s aspirations come to life.

I’m so proud to say Rashida is another one of the many young education leaders whose dedication to children was fostered through the CDF Freedom Schools program.

Freedom Schools are training a new generation of public school teachers who love, respect, and set high expectations for all of the children in their care.

Marian Wright Edelman is president of the Children’s Defense Fund whose Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. For more information go to www.childrensdefense.org.

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Activism

Oakland Post Endorses Barbara Lee

Barbara Lee will be able to unify the city around Oakland’s critical budget and financial issues, since she will walk into the mayor’s office with the support of a super majority of seven city council members — enabling her to achieve much-needed consensus on moving Oakland into a successful future.

Published

4 weeks ago

April 2, 2025

Oakland Post

Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Courtesy photo, Office of Rep. Barbara Lee.

Former Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Courtesy photo.

As we end the celebration of Women’s History Month in Oakland, we endorse Barbara Lee, a woman of demonstrated historical significance. In our opinion, she has the best chance of uniting the city and achieving our needs for affordable housing, public safety, and fiscal accountability.

As a former small business owner, Barbara Lee understands how to apply tools needed to revitalize Oakland’s downtown, uptown, and neighborhood businesses.

It is notable that many of those who fought politically on both sides of the recent recall election battles have now laid down their weapons and become brothers and sisters in support of Barbara Lee. The Oakland Post is pleased to join them.

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Actor, Philanthropist Blair Underwood Visits Bay Area, Kicks Off Literacy Program in ‘New Oakland’ Initiative

These community activations were coordinated with the San Francisco-based non-profit program “Room to Read.” Ray said he is also donating his time to read and take pictures with students to encourage their engagement and to inspire them to read more. The inspirational book “Clifford Ray Saves the Day” highlights Clifford Ray’s true story of saving a dolphin.

Published

2 months ago

February 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Blair Underwood (left) and Barbara Lee (right). Courtesy photo.

By Paul Cobb
New Oakland Series
Opinion Part 3

The Post mentioned three weeks ago that a number of our local luminaries were coming together to support the “New Oakland” movement. As this current national administration continues to eliminate our “legacy” institutional policies and programs left and right, most communities find themselves beyond “frozen” in fear.

Well, esteemed actor, long-time Bay Area supporter, and philanthropist Blair Underwood returned to Oakland this week to speak with city leaders, community trust agents, students, the Oakland Post, and local celebrities alike to continue his “New Oakland” initiative.

This week, he kicked off his “Guess Who’s Coming to Read” literacy program in some of Oakland’s middle schools. Clifford Ray, who played the center position of the 1975 World Champion Golden State Warriors, donated close to 1,000 books. Ray’s fellow teammate Charles “The Hopper” Dudley also gave Converse sneakers to students.

Underwood also spent quality time with the Oakland Ballers ownership group and visited the amazing Raimondi Park West Oakland community revitalization site. In the 1996 TV film Soul of the Game, Underwood played the role of the legendary first Black Major League Baseball player Jackie Robinson and commended the Ballers owners.

“This group of sports enthusiasts/ philanthropists needs to be applauded for their human capital investment and their financial capital investment,” Underwood said. “Truly putting their money and passion to work,” Underwood said.

Underwood was also inspired by mayoral candidate Barbara Lee’s open-minded invitation to bring public-private partnership opportunities to Oakland.

Underwood said he wants to “reinforce the importance of ‘collaborative activism’ among those most marginalized by non-empathic leadership. We must ‘act out’ our discomfort with passionate intentions to create healthy change.”

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Councilmembers Ramachandran, Kaplan, Unger Identify Funds to Save Oakland Fire Stations

Our budget crisis – one of the worst in Oakland’s history – is compounded by the fact that people do not feel safe coming to Oakland due to our public safety crisis. By investing in our fundamental public safety resources today, we can send a signal to the world that Oakland is open for business. We have such a rich and vibrant culture, arts, and food scene that is worth celebrating – but we can only showcase this if we are able to keep our neighborhoods safe. Having fully functioning fire stations are absolutely essential to these efforts.

Published

2 months ago

February 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Councilmember Janani Ramachandran. Courtesy photo.

By Janani Ramachandran

There is no greater concern to the people of Oakland today than public safety. Fire stations are the bread and butter of essential city services – and every day that we have stations shuttered, we imperil the lives of our community members. In response to widespread outcry over the current and planned closure of stations, myself, along with Councilmembers Kaplan and Unger, have painstakingly worked to identify millions of dollars of new funding to save our stations. The legislation we introduced on Thursday, February 13th, will amend our budget to prevent the closure of four fire stations that are currently on the chopping block due to our budget crisis and will re-open two closed stations that have already been closed – Station 25 and 28 – in the near future. The resolution that will provide the funding to keep our stations open will go before the full City Council for a vote at our meeting on Tuesday, March 4^th at 3:30 PM – and we invite you to join us at City Hall to share your perspective on the topic.

With the devastating Los Angeles fire at the top of people’s minds, terrible memories of Oakland’s own wildfires are re-surfacing from the 1991 Oakland Hills Firestorm to the Keller fire just a few months ago – and how essential fire stations are to mitigating these catastrophes. But in Oakland, our fire stations don’t just fight wildfires – they also provide emergency medical services to our most vulnerable constituents, put out structural fires and encampment fires, and much more.

We recognize that there are a number of competing interests and important initiatives fighting for sparse City resources. But from my perspective, core safety services are the most pivotal functions that a City must spend its resources on – especially given the outcry we have heard around fire stations.

The fight to save our stations is not over. The resolution we introduced is a critical first step, and there are hurdles to overcome. If you support keeping our fire stations open, we invite you to be a part of the solution by making your voice heard at the March 4^th City Council meeting at 3:30 pm.