Images (65)
Showing first 60 of 65 pages.
Document
| id |
id
621042543
|
|---|---|
| contentType |
contentType
document
|
| source |
source
import
|
Source image fields (6)
Extracted text
OCR Page 1 of 65Creators Syndicate
310-337-7003
5/26/98
PM
2/3
TALKING IT OVER
BY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY. MAY 27, 1998, AND THEREAFTER
Ten years ago, nervous neighbors crossed the street to avoid Chicago's Du Sable
High School, where, in 1987, a student was shot to death inside the building.
Now, people cross the street to enjoy the school's gardens, blooming with flowers and
vegetables, and to marvel at the peacocks, pheasants and macaws in the courtyard atrium.
Down the hall, in teacher Emil Hamberlin's biology class, you'll find more animals --
boa constrictors, pythons a pot-bellied nig. an alligator. ferrets and even a hadger When Dr
Hamberlin. who's taught at Du Sable for 35 years, notices that students are having trouble
getting to school, he assigns them an animal.
"We see a dramatic improvement in attendance when we give the students
responsibility," he explains. One ninth-grader, Charles Armstrong, loves feeding the animals
-- the peacocks are his favorite. He's going to work with Dr. Hamberlin this summer and plans
to major in biology in college.
Now, the school wants to renovate the atrium as a memorial to friends slain in the
neighborhood. Last November, Du Sable's Gospel Choir members joined their suburban
counterparts at the top-ranked New Trier High School for a fund-raising concert at Chicago's
Orchestra Hall.
Du Sable was once one of the jewels of the Chicago school system -- not unlike New
Trier -- boasting famous alumni including former Mayor Harold Washington and Nat "King"
Cole. But when Principal Charles Mingo arrived in 1988, the outlook was bleak.
It wasn't unusual to find more students hanging out in the hallways than in class, and
on any given day, only about 65 percent showed up at all. Mingo himself bought alarm clocks
for some students, went to their homes and knocked on doors to roust them out of bed.
Nonetheless, he says, attendance is still his biggest problem.
Mingo also rid the halls of graffiti and declared Du Sable "neutral turf" in the gang wars
that rage outside the door. He banned hats, coats, radios and sunglasses inside the building.
He has to be strict, he explains, because he's dealing with "kids who've grown up without a
whole lot of order." Eighty percent of Du Sable students live in the Robert Taylor Homes, one
of the nation's three poorest communities.
It wasn't just the kids, though, who were underachieving. Some teachers,
disheartened and uninspired, didn't issue books, claiming students would lose them. And
many locked up classroom computers so that students couldn't use them. One teacher
explained, "I don't want kids to steal them." Now, Du Sable prides itself on being the first
public school in Chicago to be wired for Internet access.
Relations
belongs_to