NYTimes.com Article: The Day Only Starts at 3

[Pam McKeta]

Hi --
Here's a nice article from The New York Times on the power of afterschool
programs, especially those that expose kids to all kinds of experiences.

Pam

----------------
Pam McKeta
Morino Institute
pmcketa at morino.org

<p>In Some Important Ways, The Day Only Starts at 3

January 9, 2002

By RICHARD ROTHSTEIN

The art of Jacob Lawrence, the magnificent African-American painter who
wove color, shape, history and
sociology into emotionally powerful images, is on display at the Whitney
Museum.

The Phillips Collection, of Washington, organized the exhibit (it leaves on
Feb. 3 for Detroit, Los Angeles and
Houston), gathering for the first time all 60 paintings in Lawrence's
narrative of blacks' migration from the South.
Museum stores sell a middle-school guide to Lawrence's life and work, "I
See You, I See Myself." Every child would
appreciate it.

But behind the art is another story, about Utopia Children's House,
organized in early-20th-century Harlem to
offer after-school care to children of women working as domestics across
the city.

Lawrence first attended Utopia as a 13-year-old in 1930, gravitating to a
workshop taught by Charles Alston, later a
notable painter himself but then an arts education student at Teachers
College.

"They didn't tell me what to do, how to draw or what to paint," Lawrence
once remembered. "They gave me materials
and ideas on how to experiment, and left me alone to create out of my
imagination."

Few achieve Lawrence's greatness, but many artists, athletes and leaders,
especially those from poor backgrounds, credit after-school programs for
their success. With low adult-to-child ratios, these are places where
mentoring is possible. Today, as schools devote more time to basic skills,
such programs may be a child's only exposure to arts, music, dance and
group activities.

Raymond Flynn, former mayor of Boston and ambassador to the Vatican,
recalls that in the early 1950's, his immigrant
parents, both working, were not home after school, so he went to the South
Boston Boys Club. He loved basketball in
the gym, but Boys Club rules required him to choose other activities, too,
like being tutored with homework,
organizing club elections or woodworking.

"You learned citizenship and how to get along," Mr. Flynn said recently,
but the main lesson was balance and
moderation. "They kept the program well rounded, and it developed
well-rounded youngsters."

The actor Denzel Washington says the Mount Vernon (N.Y.) Boys Club inspired
him to go to college and pursue drama.

Andrew Young, civil rights leader and former ambassador to the United
Nations, says the New Orleans Y.M.C.A. developed his leadership skills.

"The Y didn't lead marches," Mr. Young said, "but everybody who led the
marches was trained in the Y."

In the 1960's, Gregory W. Meeks, now a congressman from Queens, was bused
from East Harlem to an integrated junior
high school that had an after-school program. He joined a "humanities club"
for conversation with students of varied
races and ethnicities. He practiced photography on some days, and later
paid for college by taking photographs for
The Associated Press.

On other days, he was tutored in math and reading at the East Harlem
Tutorial Project, a church-sponsored group. In
high school, he tutored younger children in history. After-school
activities, Mr. Meeks says now, explain his adult success.

The tennis great Althea Gibson first picked up a racket in a Police
Athletic League after-school program in Harlem in the 1930's, while Jacob
Lawrence was experimenting with shapes and colors nearby.

Edith Jenkins, principal of Public School 123 in Manhattan, attributes her
professional career to PAL programs where
she tutored younger children, played the bugle, ran track and took field
trips to the theater.

"You were taught skills to make you feel better about yourself," Mrs.
Jenkins said, "and exposed to things you
didn't get in regular school."

At P.S. 123, she has organized after-school tutorials, a conflict
resolution group, a cheering squad, and music and
dance clubs, designing them to have the same qualities as those from which
she benefited as a child.

But sufficient funds just don't exist, in New York or many other places,
for every child who needs those activities.
Mrs. Jenkins can finance after-school enrichment at P.S. 123 for only half
the pupils who need and want it.

The financier George Soros sponsors a foundation to promote after- school
centers, with support from other
philanthropies, the city and the state; still, about 400,000 children in
New York City lack adequate after-
school activities. The federal government, meanwhile, spends about $1
billion a year on after-school centers
nationwide, but rejects $1.7 billion worth of applications for lack of
funds.

Especially as math and reading squeeze other subjects from the curriculum,
after-school programs are needed to build
children's character, confidence, civic awareness, athletic prowess, and
artistic and musical sensibility. How many
undiscovered Jacob Lawrences are among the 10 million children around the
country who have no place to go after
school?

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/09/national/09LESS.html?ex=1012022846&ei=1&en=41046c3ad186b274

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