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June 5 , 1 9 9 1 -T h e Portland O b server -Page 15
To Be Young, Gifted And Encouraged
When Joyce Oatman
created a challenging program
fo r her inner-city students,
she discovered something
amazing
W h ile there are no clear-
cut solutions to the problems
confronting the nation’ s ele­
m entary and secondary
schools, a great deal is being
done through various pro­
grams and approaches. And
i t ’s clear, as the fo llo w in g
report on Chicago’ s Joyce
Oatman and her inner-city
students demonstrates: One
person can make a difference.
O N E G O O D W A Y TO
F IN D out w hat’ s really going
on in a high school is to w ait
u ntil the teachers are other­
wise occupied and talk w ith
Joyce Oatman with some o th e r students at Tiden High in Chicago.
the kids. Teenagers are usu­
o f kids in college. B ut five years ago, that success
a lly pretty astute judges o f their w orld. So when I went
seemed threatened. Chicago State U niversity, which
to a M idwestern High school recently, I was im ­
had accepted many o f her students, announced that it
pressed that they a ll spoke hig hly o f their school and
would begin raising its admissions standards by in ­
what i t was preparing them for.
creasing the point requirement on the A C T standard­
“ In fiv e years, I w ill have graduated from college
ized exam by one point a year. M ost o f Oatman’ s
w ith a degree in hotel management,” one g irl told me,
college-bound students were scoring o nly 14 points.
“ I w ill have my firs t jo b w ith a m ajor hotel company.
She believed she had ju s t two years to get their scores
Ten years from now , I expect to own several hotels.”
up to 18-which is s till o nly average. “ I had to get four
“ Five years from now, 1 w ill be getting my mas­
points from somewhere,” she recalls. (A ctu ally, the
ter’ s in English from Harvard,” a boy said. “ A fte r
point requirement w ill not reach 18 u ntil 1993.)
that, I plan to go to law school and become a lawyer.
Oatman read every educational textbook she could
There are plenty o f high schools in America
get her hands on and began enrichment programs for
where that kind o f talk is only to be expected-board­
her students. She brought them to school early in th
ing schools in the Northeast, prep schools in Los
m orning and talked them into staying late and coming
Angeles, suburban high schools around the country.
in on Saturdays. She worked w ith them on basic skills
But these tw o young people were students at drafty
like reading and math but also talked to them about
old Tilden H igh, on the South Side o f Chicago-inner-
how to think c ritic a lly and about issues as diverse as
c ity kids from th kind o f backgrounds that m ight make
philosophy and the environment.
an outsider think they had never stayed in a hotel or
Looking fo r ideas, Oatman went to an educa­
heard o f Harvard, much less planned to own one and
tional conference in New Orleans and wandered into
attend the other.
a seminar on gifted children. When she described
They were bright, articulate and self-assured-in
what she was doing at Crane, the moderator said it had
part because they have an educational resource you
all the earmarks o f a program fo r gifted children. “ I
can’ t get at those fancy schools. They have Joyce
thought she was crazy,” Oatman recalls. “ These were
Oatman.
inner-city kids.”
She’ s one o f those people who seem to energize
But then she noticed something remarkable: Her
a room by entering it, her nonstop talk and upbeat
students were starting to perform like gifted children.
message persuading by their very persistence. For 34
Those A C T scores started going up-to 18, and then
years, Oatman has been teaching at public high schools
past, into the 20s. Oatman’ s improvised teaching
in Chicago-since she le ft a graduate fellow ship in
methods were bearing fru it. The firs t class o f eight
chemistry at the U niversity o f W isconsin. “ I always
Crane seniors in her intensive program graduated last
knew I wanted to teach,” she says, “ and it was cold
year. Seven are now in top colleges, including the
and lonely up in Madison, so I just came to Chicago
U niversity o f Minnesota, the U niversity o f Iowa and
and started teaching.”
the U niversity o f Illin o is . Their averages range from C
Early on, her principals identified Oatman as a
to A -. The eighth student recently applied to college.
special teacher. A t Crane H igh School on Chicago’ s
This year, Oatman moved to Tilden and brought
West Side, she was placed in charge o f the college-
her ideas w ith her. Her Tilden T A G (Talented and
preparatory program. A lthough teh school was in a
continued on page 16
neighborhood o f housing projects, she placed dozens
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PORTLAND
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Kaiser Funds Summer Program
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The health maintenance organiza­
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program bringing a month o f reading,
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im m igrant and low -incom e students at
Beach Elementary School. The school
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same north Portland neighborhood as a
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states Beach School p rincipal, M ike
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Mike Lindberg. Commissioner
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