LONG BEACH At this summer s at Hamilton Elementary in North Long Beach, no child is too small to learn about the controversial chapters of the nation s past. That includes the topic of racial segregation. Kindergartners at the Hamilton site of the Freedom School the Children s Defense Fund s national summer literacy program with a social action focus recently learned about the in which students left school to march for civil rights. Police responded to the child marchers by unleashing water canons and attack dogs on the youngsters before arresting them.
Yvonne Nettles, site coordinator of the Freedom School in Long Beach since its inception 10 years ago, said she worried at first that the lesson on the Children s Crusade might overwhelm the kindergartners. Instead, they took a keen interest in the history lesson, Nettles said. They understand what was going on, she said. This summer the Freedom School in Long Beach,Black True Religion Jeans, one of nearly 30 Freedom Schools statewide, is placing more emphasis than it already has on the civil rights movement. The Freedom School program, designed for K-12 students, models itself after the educational approach of 1964 s . During that event, hundreds of students from across the country traveled to the South to fight segregation and register blacks to vote. Today, 50 years have passed since the landmark event, and the estimated 13,000 students at Freedom Schools nationwide are commemorating the anniversary by continuing their efforts to boost children s reading skills with a multicultural curriculum as well as community engagement.
Students Taj Grant, 12, and Kahlil Broom, 13 two of about 100 youths at the Long Beach Freedom School site have taken part in the program for seven years. They say that attending the Freedom School has taught them more about the civil rights movement and heightened their reading abilities. We learned a lot of the stress our ancestors have gone through to get where we are now, said Taj. She said that in Freedom School she s read about a number of civil rights activists and abolitionists, including Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin,True Religion Jeans Outlet, Harriet Tubman and Ella Baker.
Kahlil said that in Freedom School his literacy skills have improved. The eighth-grader now reads at a high school sophomore level, he said. A pair of multiyear studies on Freedom Schools in North Carolina and Missouri found that youths in the program significantly improved their literacy skills.Korla Collins, a Freedom School consultant, said that the program helps students take an interest in reading by providing them with books that touch on a range of issues, including growing up in a home with a bipolar parent or with a single parent as well as growing up in a multicultural or LGBT family.
We re able to make connections in books, Collins said.Freedom School students, or scholars as they are referred to in the program, also receive letters of appreciation for reading and are encouraged to make time each day to .By the end,True Religion Skirt, Some kids who never asked to go to the library now ask their parents to go, said Paula Wood, executive director of , the Long Beach organization that partners with the Children s Defense Fund to run the local Freedom School site.
When the six-week program wraps up this summer on Aug. 8, students will leave with backpacks full of school supplies and books of their choice to bring home with them.Students also leave the program with a better sense of how to serve their community, according to Nettles and Wood. Throughout Freedom School, scholars are asked to identify the needs in their communities and how they can play a role in meeting them. They understand they can make a difference, Nettles said.