September 5, 2016
U.S.A.
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 13
Teachers tackle racial bias:
“We’re tired of waiting”
By Paige Cornwell
The Seattle Times
S
ENDANGERED INFANT. Polly, right, a precocious and healthy baby Matschie’s Tree Kangaroo, was born
to mother LaRoo, left, and father Yopno (not pictured) on February 11, 2016, at the Roger Williams Park Zoo in
Providence, Rhode Island. “Polly is one of only six Matschie’s Tree Kangaroos born in captivity in the last year in
the United States as part of the Association of Zoos and Aquarium’s Species Survival Program,” said Dr. Jeremy
Goodman, executive director of the zoo. (Photo courtesy of the Roger Williams Park Zoo)
Rhode Island zoo announces
birth of endangered kangaroo
Officials at the Roger Williams Park Zoo
in Providence, Rhode Island, have
announced the birth of an endangered
kangaroo native to Papua New Guinea
earlier this year. Polly, a Matschie’s Tree
Kangaroo, was born to mother LaRoo and
father Yopno on February 11, 2016.
Polly was about one inch when born and
took two to three minutes after birth to
crawl to her mother’s pouch.
Females are pregnant for six weeks, and
after birth, the baby — known as a joey —
continues its development in the mother’s
pouch. The mother cleans her pouch and
grooms the infant often during this phase
of the offspring’s development.
After the joey initially leaves the pouch
at about eight months, it continues to
return to the pouch to nurse. This “in-and-
out” phase lasts for one to two months.
During the final phase, the young
kangaroo still nurses, but never climbs
completely into the pouch. Female joeys
stay with their mother for up to three
years; males leave after one to two years.
Polly is a precocious and healthy baby
who is, at seven months, beginning to peek
out of the pouch on a frequent basis.
“Polly is one of only six Matschie’s Tree
Kangaroos born in captivity in the last
year in the United States as part of the
Association of Zoos and Aquarium’s
Species Survival Program,” said Dr.
Jeremy Goodman, executive director of the
zoo.
The Matschie’s Tree Kangaroo has the
longest gestation period of any marsupial.
They sleep about 60 percent of the time,
and have a diet of leaves and fruits. They
are also noted for their red to mahogany
brown color with patches of beige.
Matschie’s
Tree
Kangaroos
are
generally solitary creatures. They are
native to the mountainous rainforest of
Huon Peninsula in Papua New Guinea,
and the nearby island of Umboi, which has
been devastated by an increase in logging
as well as oil and mineral exploration and
mining in their natural environment.
Currently listed as an endangered
species, there are fewer than 2,500
Matschie’s Tree Kangaroos in the wild.
To learn more, visit <www.rwpzoo.
org>.
Panda cub’s older sister celebrates
third birthday at National Zoo
WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) — Her
brother got the big party, but the National
Zoo’s other young giant panda is also
celebrating a birthday.
Bao Bao turned three on August 23.
That means she only has a year left at the
National Zoo before she goes to China to
enter its panda breeding program. China
owns the pandas at the zoo and any cubs
born in Washington eventually go back.
Bao Bao is the second of three surviving
cubs born to Mei Xiang (may-SHONG)
during her time at the zoo. She now weighs
180 pounds and is classified as a
“sub-adult.” Pandas can begin breeding
between the ages of four and six.
The zoo celebrated the birthdays of Bao
Bao, one-year-old brother Bei Bei, and
their father Tian Tian (tyen tyen) on
Saturday, August 27.
ASTHMA
IS
ON
THE RISE.
Help us find a cure.
1-800-LUNG-USA
PANDA PARTY. One-year-old giant panda cub
Bei Bei takes a peek out of his cage at the National
Zoo in Washington, D.C. The zoo celebrated the birth-
days of Bao Bao, Bei Bei, and their father Tian Tian on
August 27. (AP Photo/Sait Serkan Gurbuz)
EATTLE (AP) — Teacher Pam
Wilson is often assigned the “hard
children” at Frank Wagner Ele-
mentary School in Monroe. By that,
administrators mean students who are
learning
English,
or
qualify
for
special-education services, or whose
families have little money. When she asks
why they are placed in her class, she’s told
she’s “good with them.”
“But everyone should be good with
them,” she said during a weeklong
training of more than 40 educators, the
first of its kind sponsored by the state’s
largest teachers union.
The program, run in collaboration with
the University of Washington and funded
with a three-year grant from the National
Education Association, is the outgrowth of
meetings with parents and a survey of
11,000 Washington teachers and other
public-school employees, reported The
Seattle Times.
In that survey, the teachers and others
said their top priority, by an overwhelming
margin, was addressing the differences in
achievement by students of different
races, socio-economic levels, and other
demographics.
If the effort is successful, Wilson and the
other union members will train their peers
to build stronger relationships with
students, so all students feel welcome in
the classroom, regardless of background.
The people who want the training “are
the ones who know what it is like in the
classroom,” Ben Ibale, the union’s human-
and civil-rights coordinator, said about
teachers across the state. “That’s unique.”
A Gallup poll last year found that half
the students in grades five through 12
nationwide feel stuck or discouraged about
their futures. Slightly more than half
agreed that adults at their school cared
about them, and one-fourth said they don’t
have a single teacher who makes them feel
excited about the future.
Wilson said schools need to focus first on
building
better
relationships
with
students. That means teachers need to
know more about their students — and
look deeply at themselves, participants
said.
The sessions have ended, but will
continue throughout the year. In the
future, participants want to continue
talking about issues such as student
discipline. Black students, for example,
are suspended at far greater rates, on
average, than white, Asian, or Latino
students, according to Office of Superin-
tendent of Public Instruction data.
One question the training addresses:
What role do teachers play in those
numbers? Do biases or stereotypes affect
who they discipline and how they
discipline them?
“When they are disciplining a student,
are their implicit biases showing?” said
Adam Aguilera, a teacher at Heritage
High School in Vancouver. “Are they
disciplining just the students of color?”
During one session, the educators
gathered in small groups to discuss what
came out of several community meetings
held across the state over the past few
months. At those meetings, which were
organized by the union and local leaders,
parents, students, and community
members talked about what teachers and
ANTI-BIAS TRAINING. Ben Ibale, left, talks
with Patricia McDonald during a training program held
for Washington educators at the University of Wash-
ington. At the meetings, members discussed how
teachers can better help students. (Johnny Andrews/
The Seattle Times via AP)
schools can do to better serve all students
equitably.
Though those meetings were held in
different parts of the state, the themes
were similar: Communities wanted better
school-home connections and classrooms
where all students feel welcome.
At the recent training, the teachers
discussed strategies to achieve those goals,
such as home visits, finding ways to use
students’ home languages in class, and
holding weekly student-teacher meetings.
Joshua Cushman, a teacher at Tacoma’s
Lincoln High School, said some families
might not feel comfortable inviting a
teacher they don’t know well into their
home. He found that writing a letter to
families with information about his
background, a photo, and an invitation to
visit his classroom also worked well.
Another
participant
said
using
LanguageLine,
a
phone-translation
service, had helped in providing updates to
families in multiple languages.
All the educators spoke with a sense of
urgency and talked about the need for
teachers to work together to address the
issues themselves, rather than rely on
those who aren’t in the classroom.
“We’re tired of waiting,” Wilson said.
q
From Copa to Korea:
Winter Games in
Pyeongchang next up
Continued from page 9
Gunilla Lindberg, the IOC member
heading the planning for Pyeongchang,
said the sliding center and the
International Broadcast Center are
“slightly delayed.”
Meantime, competition is heating up
between South Korea and China over
whose Olympic ski venue might ultimately
become a destination for Asian tourists.
Beijing planners have picked Zhangjiakou
as the ski site for the 2022 games.
Pyeongchang has some advantages, as it
gets more natural snow than Zhangjiakou.
“A ski resort built for the Beijing Games
is not going to be enough, considering the
population of China,” Kim said. “We want
to attract Chinese, but also Southeast
Asians.”
Pyeongchang is in South Korea’s
Gangwon province, and the central and
provincial governments have been
battling over who should pay the Olympic
bills as skepticism grows about the long-
term economic benefits of mega-sporting
events, said Chung, the sports science
professor.
“Pyeongchang mostly got what it
wanted,” Chung said, noting the province
has pushed off costs to the central
government. “It has no choice. It’s still the
Olympics, and you don’t want to look bad
hosting it.”
Kim contributed from Seoul, South Korea.