Mennonite Central Committee News Service
July 27, 1973
PICKING UP AFTER PARENTAL NEGLECT ATLANTA
TEACHERS SHARE VALUES
Atlanta, GA--A long, hard school year
is not enough to keep three Mennonite elementary teachers from
spending summer mornings at the Moreland Community School Day
Camp in Atlanta.
The Day Camp provides supervised recreation
and arts and crafts for children in one of Atlanta's interracial
communities. The teachers--Barbara Delk Koontz, Hillsboro, KS,
and Debbie and Maurice Miller, Goshen, IN--are three of 16 Mennonite
Central Committee volunteers in the city. Most volunteers stay
for two years.
Inner city teaching can be exhausting.
"Our kids suffer so much from parental
neglect," said Debbie, who teaches third grade during the
school year. "The only way for them to get something at
home is to scream for it. They haven't learned to converse. You
can imagine what this means in day camp or in a classroom."
Barbara Koontz and Maurice Miller, both
physical education teachers, share Debbie's concern to communicate
to their students values such as sharing, working together in
harmony, and respect for each other's rights and property.
"Fighting is the main solution
to their problems," Barbara continued. "One student
can hardly bump another without getting a fight started. They
learn it at home. Several of Debbie's students have seen their
mothers shoot and kill their fathers."
Lack of materials and physical education
equipment demands creativity from the teachers.
Debbie's students transformed cardboard boxes
into a colorful train. Barbara at Mary Lynn School and Maurice
at Moreland School emphasized movement guidance such as rhythm
and hand/eye coordination since it required little equipment.
"The first year I had two or three
balls. That was it," Maurice said. "This year we ordered
ropes, balance beams, hockey sets, hula hoops and balls and bats
through a community organization. It sure makes teaching a lot
easier."
Barbara, a first-year teacher last year,
held her classes on an auditorium stage during cold weather.
Maurice's experience was helpful to her, she said.
"He gave me an old parachute. It's
amazing the games you can play with a parachute!"
For the past five or six years Mary
Lynn students had no formal physical education classes. Barbara
is the first volunteer gym teacher at the school.
"The student/teacher ratio is 26
to 1," Barbara explained. "When the school hires remedial
reading teachers, physical education teachers and other resource
teachers, it can hire fewer classroom teachers. Then class size
goes up. That's why volunteer teachers are so important."
Debbie and Maurice are both salaried
teachers. They turn their pay checks over to Mennonite Central
Committee to help support the Atlanta program.
Terry Brown, a former MCC teacher who
decided to stay in Atlanta when her term ended, will rejoin the
unit this fall when she marries one of the present volunteers.
She remembers trying to explain to her stu- dents that her salary
was going to the church.
"My kids told me, 'I sure wouldn't
belong to that church!'" she laughed.
Like Terry, both Debbie and Maurice have found
teaching jobs in the area and plan to stay when their terms as
volunteers end this summer.
"We have our jobs and friends.
And we didn't have roots elsewhere." Maurice explained.
And besides, the children need them.
Gayle Gerber Koontz, Information Services
27july1973