To Touch a Child

[Music] [Music] [Music] each weekday sometime in the late afternoon the life goes out of more than 100 000 school buildings in the united states [Music] keys turn in locks and billions of dollars worth of public owned buildings are transformed into sleeping giants of brick and stone empty islands isolated from their communities by a no man's land of deserted darkening halls in classrooms serve no community purpose their evening silence disturbed only by the custodians this is the story of one school that was shaken out of its twilight sleep with some remarkable results years ago cook school too spent the waning hours of each day isolated from the lives of the households in its neighborhood adult needs and home problems were not its concern or so it seemed but each weekday morning the children came out of those homes and cook school took them in equally as though their minds were as unmarked and as freshly scrubbed as their faces but if the doors were intended to shut out distracting influences they closed in vain for each child brought his whole environment with him and the teacher who reached out to touch a child reached into the unknown happy homes or broken homes intelligent parents or indifferent parents nobody really knew but the atmosphere of every home and the personality of every parent were present in the classrooms at cook school look i can't help in a way i don't travel because i like it it's my job but you could spend more time with him when you are home he might as well not have a father he needs more masculine interest and i can't provide them [Music] her brother her older one he quit school her father didn't finish neither and you can't get him inside one feels kind of out of place you know now this one ain't taking much interest in school neither sure he's restless he's bored he can read he can print entire sentences why is it the bright child's the misfit in school i don't blame him i blame the school where can i turn to they're just not going to be any job like mine anymore you'll find something honey you don't understand there's nothing else i know how to do there'll be something oh honey oh you go on to school sweetheart your daddy gonna be all right you'll be all right each spring cook school held a new group of children on its lap took a family picture and passed them on to secondary school [Music] and then it waited empty and unused through the summer but life in its community went on the boy who needed a father's companionship lost it permanently when his parents separated [Music] with little hope the unemployed family tried a larger city and moved with their daughter into one of its slum areas that summer a boy who lived a few blocks from the high school and its closed swimming pool dropped attempting to swim in the river a cook graduate who had dropped out of high school unprepared to earn a living was started on his way to reform school for the people without children people lacking an adequate education for the old and the lonely the school had no personal meaning it was a place for the children of strangers a tax burden year after year the people expressed their feelings at the polls additional classrooms no remodeling unnecessary gymnasium a colossal waste [Music] not all of the children were fond of the school either not the ill-equipped child who had entered it unprepared he expressed his feelings too [Music] but there were some who saw unused possibilities here and were bold enough to use them [Music] maybe it'd help if i tossed you a few i can take away my boss oh i wouldn't do that why don't i toss him you try to hit him bye [Music] hey mister we're not supposed to be here when there's no school all right thank you there were adults too who saw the possibilities locked inside unused school buildings was there anything one man could do about the waste could the public be persuaded to make fuller use of the schools how important was it to try [Music] come here you go in that schoolyard and you play there you understand yeah and if anybody says anything you tell them your parents helped pay for it from now on you play there for the school's physical education supervisor it was time to try why should school property stand idle while children played in the streets as he explained it maybe when you gave a boy a bat and a ball you could also give him purpose and direction furthermore utilizing the neighborhood schools as community centers also made economic sense why should you pay 50 in taxes for schools and settle for only nine months of daytime use or a thousand three hundred and sixty five hours of school use a year when you can add less than three dollars on top of that and get twelve months of day and evening use or 2 535 additional hours of school use a year he had the idea what he had to find now was a doer [Music] someone like the tall quiet man who had opened a summer camp near the city for underprivileged boys a successful industrialist who had been one of the pioneers in the automotive field this man believed that every person was in a kind of informal partnership with his community and finally it was he who awakened the sleeping giant of education [Music] like many important decisions his was made quietly and undramatically on a tennis court one sunday afternoon the industrialist asked what would you think of building a boys club here in town the physical education supervisor pointed across the field to the empty high school building and asked to reply why don't we use the buildings we already have the right idea had found the right man the industrialist decided through a foundation established in his name to offer the board of education six thousand dollars to pay for keeping a few schools open as community centers cook school was one of them recreation was to be emphasized but also the people themselves were to decide what programs their community school would offer it's not only the kids i'd like to use a gym in the playground myself after all it's right here in the neighborhood i think if the teenagers had some place near home where they could have a club a nice decent place to go i have two teenagers of my own and i know they'd like something like this well i don't know there's a lot i don't know about fixing meals i don't mean just cooking them but fixing something fancy once in a while mary and i are all alone there's other couples like us couples like play pinocchio pedro euchre you play cards it was not a spontaneous demand for instruction in philosophy or literature or higher mathematics it was people reaching out for what they wanted recreation self-improvement companionship i don't think they'll buy it the school should have standards meet the real needs not just give them anything they want maybe it's a chance for the people to find out what they need at any rate the paper is supporting it and you go out and follow it up you might even enroll in something yourself like what indoor volleyball baseball card playing league club concert plays movies orchestras will be available for dancing hobby clubs art classes going groups and i have to be there won't it be awful if i'm the only adult who shows up why isn't it yes it is you know i haven't been inside the old school since i graduated where is everybody i think i'm early you said 6 30. what's that now if people were going to come they'd be here wouldn't they relax you relax i've got a whole staff waiting in the gym the instructors are all waiting is anybody here yet one no ask them to wait please you know it's funny what a hard time people like me have realizing we own this building i felt uneasy when i had to open that front door coming in here tonight why don't you leave it open didn't it [Music] well welcome to school the response was beyond all expectations five community-centered schools were not enough the foundation increased its contribution to the school board and the next season 15 schools opened round the clock round the year they came to play to participate to learn until eventually every elementary junior high and high school in the city became a community center the high school pool was open for family use and every child had the opportunity to learn to swim gymnasiums the costliest rooms in the school when they stood empty turned out to be the best bargain in public property noon hours afternoons and evenings the kids flocked in to play along with their fathers who could hardly wait for their turn and many a child who struggled with addition in the classroom had the satisfaction of knowing that mother was down the hall struggling with subtraction the encouraging fact was that many who came to learn cake decorating or just to play cards remained to earn a high school diploma or college credits and classes in english physics mathematics and foreign languages were asked for and presented the discouraging fact was that the boy had his bat and his ball and a safe place to play but the hope of a simple solution to juvenile problems went down swinging to know the child the school had to know his total environment so visiting teachers went out to the homes and they came back with some heartbreaking questions [Music] of what use were sports to a child in poor health or a child with a physical handicap how could a child maintain a desire for knowledge in a home where the parents were illiterate [Music] where was a child to find his creative energy when he came to school each morning undernourished familiar community problems but with a difference they were now exposed in a community that was becoming school-centered the people had a base from which to launch a counter-attack the industrialist with the help of the medical profession was also working on the health problem he believed that his foundation helped people most when it encouraged self-help the foundation gave help in the form of a children's health center for those from medically indigent families self-help was encouraged by a school community health achievement program in its first year it revealed more than sixty thousand correctable health defects among the children parents were urged to have family physicians and dentists correct the defects and that year twenty thousand such corrections were made the awarding of health guarded child badges became an important annual event a health guarded child was one with no correctable physical defects unattended in just three years the number of health guarded children increased tenfold encouraged to use the schools to help themselves the people responded they assisted in the weighing and visual testing program filled the classes for expectant couples accepted health education at well baby clinics and attended courses in nutrition and home management [Music] the lighted school rekindled other interests with school facilities to utilize more youths were attracted to scouting and troops expanded their activities the park board and school board worked together and activities spread from parks to playgrounds playgrounds to parks the schools introduced fatherless boys to the big brothers and in this city more than a thousand men at a time took a thousand little brothers by the shoulder and guided them toward mandela the big sisters and the stepping stones clubs gave young girls someone with whom they could talk and question and share churches parochial schools lodges ymca social and service clubs participated in the program in fact everybody was using the schools as a school principal at first i almost threw up my hands i wondered what in the world is happening to my school i thought of it as my school just as some of the teachers think of it as their classrooms but now somebody else was taking it over at night using their blackboards their desks the uh custodian was complaining because people were scuffing up the floors that he used to be able to keep so spotless but uh we went along with it and it turned out to be the best thing that we could possibly have ever done it used to be the the parents here the teachers here now some of the teachers are earning extra income by teaching the parents and some of the parents are teaching too used to be parents only came to school to ask how their children are doing but now the kids are asking the teachers how their parents are coming along does the custodian still complain oh he can't he belongs to the woodworking club so many people were now so interested in school activities that the next school bond issue received a whopping four to one vote of approval for the first time in 20 years the city built a new school and it was the first of many designed specially to be a center of community activity its community use facilities included a hard surface playground lighted for night use it had a library station serving both students and adults in the neighborhood and a special community room and small kitchen that quickly made adult groups feel at home in the school although it was in elementary school it had a large gymnasium and an auditorium with regular stage and workshop area here the neighborhood had its own cultural center a place to see plays attend concerts all public forums and question candidates for public office for a few hours a day the gym might be the domain of the coach and his teams but in the community school it was not a shrine many evenings it became a family roller skating rink synthetic wheels protected the floors fathers mothers and children now accepted the community school as a place for shared activities older schools like cook added community centers of their own and every public school principal got help in the person of a young man who filled a new position on the staff that of community school director young men mostly the directors worked with the principals taking responsibility for the expanded activities they quickly proved indispensable in addition to teaching half days they became the nucleus of the after school and evening programs meeting with their neighborhood community councils mustering the forces of the people in the community working afternoons and saturdays with the children the community school directors helped shape the program in their schools to the needs of every age group the youngest now have summer tot lots where they learn to adjust to group activities peewee baseball leagues tee up the ball so little ones can get a smack teen clubs give young people a place in their own neighborhood for social development and recreation vocational training enables adults to increase their job skills or retrain in new skills to meet current needs or to prepare themselves for advancement and raise their opportunity levels through continuing education senior citizens look forward to dressing up for their social activities [Music] having their club in the school puts it within easy walking distance and they turn out in force [Music] as the success of the community school idea becomes widely recognized the schools find themselves welcoming more visitors each year from other cities other nations educators business leaders and parents come here to see for themselves and what they see is phenomenal in a year when the population of the city was under two hundred thousand there were eighty three thousand enrollments in more than 3600 after school and evening programs typically the evening enrollment in adult high school classes is greater than the daytime enrollment in the city's largest high school potential dropouts are being persuaded to learn a job skill or they are offered smaller special help classes and about 80 percent of them remain in school to graduate preschoolers are guided toward a readiness level curriculums are adjusted to individual differences and special achievers are challenged by enrichment programs okay we can see the circle spreading out now so that we know everybody it seems is trying something oh [Music] in this city where the public was once indifferent to its schools citizens built a college and cultural center paid for on the day it opened by voluntary contributions of more than 25 million dollars and everybody is welcome to use it something happened here something that welded people into a community and cook school was part of it what happened here is now happening in other places it could happen in any city in the united states it did happen in the city of flint michigan [Music] frank j manley is the physical education supervisor who once asked why don't we use the buildings we have today he sees those school buildings fully utilized charles stewart mott is the industrial leader who lived in partnership with his community today he can pause near the location of his old tennis court and see the fruits of that partnership in the city around it in achievements such as the children's health center the special school for handicapped children [Music] and the community school cook community school is no longer isolated today it is an extension of the households it serves each weekday morning the children come out of those houses and many of them come to school early to lift their voices among the sunrise singers [Music] in the classroom the teacher who knows the child's total environment is better equipped to meet the individual need patience here the fatherless boy is developing with the help of a big brother for this boy encouragement will be provided through special reading help [Music] firmness for the lively one who will someday be in the program for the talented child handle with care the father is in the retraining program and time will ease the problem but in the delicate years the fragile structure of a child's security needs bracing it needs the support of knowing hands through its open doors cook school touches every facet of life in its community but touches the community touches the home but touches the home touches the heart of the child so [Music] so [Music] foreign