Urban Report

Testimony

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Yvonne Lewis (Host), Dr. James Comer

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Series Code: UBR

Program Code: UBR000126A


00:01 Stay tuned to meet one of the most respected figures
00:03 in American Education.
00:05 My name is Yvonne Lewis and you're watching
00:07 Urban Report.
00:30 Hello, and welcome to Urban Report.
00:33 My guest today is Dr. James Comer,
00:35 Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University
00:38 and author of "Maggie's American Dream,"
00:41 "What I Learned in School," "Raising Black Children,"
00:44 and other scholarly works.
00:46 Welcome to Urban Report Dr. Comer...
00:49 Thank you... good to be here...
00:51 Yeah... I'm so happy you're here you know,
00:54 before I ask you about education for our children,
00:58 I just want to tell you how impressed I was
01:01 as I read your books,
01:03 I just felt your authenticity,
01:06 your compassion, your desire to make a difference
01:09 it's just so compelling, so, I want to publicly thank you
01:13 for your diligence and hard work.
01:15 Thank you so much.
01:17 Well, thank you for your kind compliments.
01:19 Absolutely... absolutely...
01:21 You know, it seems to me as though
01:23 you got your work ethic from your mom
01:26 and in your memoire,
01:28 "Maggie's American Dream"
01:30 you share a lot about your mother, Maggie.
01:33 Tell us about her and her impact on you and your siblings.
01:36 Well, it was mom and dad,
01:39 my dad was just as hardworking and dedicated,
01:42 he died early, and she really had to carry on
01:46 but she was terrific
01:49 and I would say that I won the real lottery
01:54 in having parents that were so great.
01:57 My mom was born in rural Mississippi,
02:01 Woodland, Mississippi and she was one of 12 children
02:06 and her father died...
02:10 he was killed by lightening
02:12 when she was 6 years of age, and as a result of that
02:15 a cruel stepfather came into their lives
02:18 and he was abusive in every way,
02:21 and would not allow the children to go to school,
02:24 and he was just a difficult man that they wanted to kill,
02:27 she ran away when she was 16 years of age,
02:34 to East Chicago, Indiana,
02:36 and told her sister there that she wanted to go to school
02:40 because she always felt that education was the way
02:43 but her sister wouldn't allow her to go to school,
02:47 and she had to drop out
02:49 and she took a job as a domestic worker
02:53 and that she did... for 12 years until she married my dad
02:58 and it was an interesting story, you know,
03:02 she ran away to her sister's house
03:07 and my father was her Sunday School teacher
03:09 and he was 12 years older,
03:14 and nobody wanted them to get married
03:18 her family didn't want her to get married but she did,
03:22 and they were married for 12 years before we were born,
03:26 and the two of them,
03:28 my mother with no real education,
03:33 less than two years of going to school,
03:36 my father had about 6 years of education
03:39 she worked as a Domestic,
03:40 he worked as a Steel Mill Laborer and Janitor,
03:43 and the two of them sent the 5 of us to college
03:46 for a total of 13 degrees, and so they sent that family,
03:54 they gave us a family experience
03:56 that really make that possible.
03:58 You know, from the beginning,
04:00 they would take us out to the park
04:02 and interact with us,
04:05 and they always believed in education,
04:08 and they always believed...
04:09 they believed in the Country also
04:12 because they believed that if you worked hard,
04:15 you could get wherever you wanted to go,
04:17 and so they prepared... but the others did also
04:21 that they had to prepare us to work hard
04:23 and so, everything they did,
04:25 was to prepare us to be successful in school
04:28 and to be successful in life.
04:31 That is so tremendous because one of the things that I noticed
04:37 from what you had said about your mom,
04:40 was that she... it was her story
04:43 when she was giving... in the first part of Maggie's book
04:45 the book about Maggie... Right...
04:47 and she was telling that she was a cook at 9
04:50 for over 20 people,
04:52 and so she developed a strong work ethic
04:56 your dad had a strong work ethic,
04:58 and they imparted that to you, they imparted...
05:02 even without education,
05:03 they imparted a standard of excellence,
05:07 Right... so, what you show, Dr. Jim,
05:10 if I may call you Dr. Jim,
05:11 what you show is that you don't have to be educated
05:17 to provide the environment for your children
05:20 to get an education.
05:22 That's right, that's right, when we were little children
05:26 my mother... and I still think she probably couldn't read,
05:29 she was probably illiterate, but she used to sit with us,
05:32 every Sunday evening
05:34 and read the Funnies...
05:36 now, the Funnies are not great literature
05:38 but it was sitting with her
05:43 and being close to her
05:45 and her warmth and her reading what she could to us,
05:49 and that just made learning important
05:53 and the warmth and the learning activity...
05:56 that made it important,
05:58 and that's the way they conveyed
06:00 the importance of learning to us.
06:03 Yes, what I hear you saying is that...
06:07 there was a combined activity here of the warmth,
06:16 the emotional nurturing along with the learning experience
06:20 so the learning got connected to the warmth
06:24 and that created that desire for learning
06:27 in you and your siblings. That's right.
06:30 That's the motivating factor,
06:33 if there's anything we're missing
06:34 today in what we do,
06:36 we focus too much on learning, on academics alone,
06:40 in isolation and not with the kind of environment
06:43 the warm, supportive environment,
06:45 we have to give children to help motivate them
06:49 while learning, after all, we can't learn for them,
06:52 they must learn for themselves,
06:54 and the only way you create a desire to learn
06:58 is to have the interactions with them,
07:01 in activities you're engaged in together,
07:03 that makes them want to learn,
07:05 and want to learn for themselves,
07:07 Yes... that's so true,
07:10 in your book, "What I Learned in School,"
07:14 you talked about the developmental experience
07:17 that you and your siblings had at home,
07:19 unpack that a little bit more for us, if you would.
07:23 Well, you know, you have to grow in a number of ways,
07:27 not just academically,
07:29 you have to grow psychologically, socially,
07:33 you have to learn to feel good about yourself,
07:36 but the only way you could feel good about yourself,
07:40 is to gain capacity that will allow you to read,
07:44 write, talk to others, interact with others,
07:48 when you could do all those things,
07:50 you get good feedback from other people,
07:53 that helps you begin to feel good about yourself,
07:57 and so, social interaction, the psycho-emotional,
08:01 being able to handle your emotions,
08:04 and feelings
08:06 and interact with other people,
08:08 negotiate, work things out,
08:10 rather than fight,
08:11 all of those capacities that you need to have
08:15 so that you elicit a positive feedback
08:19 from all of the people around you.
08:21 That in turn makes you feel good about yourself again
08:24 and you can interact with people, empathize with people,
08:28 want to
08:30 care about people, you do care about people
08:34 because you care about them... they care about you,
08:36 again, you feel good about yourself
08:39 and that's the way we grow along,
08:41 what we call, the developmental pathways
08:44 the six... the Psycho-emotional,
08:46 Moral, Ethical, Linguistic. Electro-Cognitive,
08:49 you have to grow in all of those areas
08:53 and then elicit the feedback
08:58 that makes you feel like a whole and good person.
09:02 Yes, it is the development
09:06 along all of those parameters that you mentioned
09:09 that really makes the child whole and so,
09:13 it's so important to provide an environment
09:17 that is going to stimulate that development
09:20 holistically, and so, in your book,
09:23 again, the same book I alluded to a little while ago,
09:26 "What I Learned in School" you talked about three friends
09:29 that you said were probably as intelligent as you
09:33 but they had a different school experience from you.
09:37 Would you unpack that a little bit for us?
09:39 They had a different school experience
09:42 because they had a different home experience before school.
09:46 You know, their parents were good people,
09:48 they worked hard, same kind of background,
09:50 and they cared about the kids,
09:53 and the kids were great young people,
09:55 except that the parents did not appreciate
09:59 how you had to intentionally give your kids experiences
10:04 that help them grow and learn and express themselves
10:08 and interact,
10:09 and learn to interact with each other.
10:11 You know, we all... in my family,
10:13 we all sat around the table at the same time,
10:15 we were expected to talk about what went on in school,
10:19 you were expected to share, we joked with each other,
10:24 we had lots of fun, that wasn't emphasized,
10:27 the... having fun, having a good environment,
10:31 talking, arguing, making jokes,
10:37 all those things were emphasized in my family
10:40 supported in my family, my friends didn't have that,
10:43 we also thought about serious matters,
10:46 and how to handle yourself,
10:47 appropriate things to do in certain situations,
10:50 that's what all kids need,
10:55 some get it...
10:56 even poor kids get it.
11:00 We were poor, but we got that experience
11:04 from the parents promoting it and my friends didn't
11:09 and that was the difference,
11:11 they could not go in and present themselves
11:14 in ways that elicited a positive feedback,
11:17 from the school people, they got negative feedback
11:20 even though they were great kids.
11:21 That is... the whole idea of stimulating conversation
11:28 again, you're talking about things that don't require a lot,
11:35 you mentioned a word that is critical,
11:38 "intentional" you have to be intentional
11:42 about how you're working with your children
11:45 and you don't have to be well educated,
11:48 you don't have to be wealthy,
11:50 but you have to provide an environment at home
11:53 that gets your child to talk,
11:55 that gets your child to think critically,
11:58 that gets your child stimulated to learn,
12:02 you mentioned in the book that
12:04 your mother took you to get a library card,
12:08 library cards are free,
12:10 you got books from the library and you read them
12:13 but your friends... didn't go to the library.
12:16 They didn't know how it worked,
12:19 their parents didn't know how it worked,
12:22 and so, it just was a different environment,
12:26 and I think that if we can share with parents
12:30 that you can provide an environment
12:34 that is going to make your child want to learn
12:37 and want to be successful, or you can... just not do that
12:42 and then the child is left
12:44 kind of on its own
12:46 to kind of... try to figure out what's going on
12:48 and then the teachers don't know
12:50 and you brought that out in the book too,
12:51 and I thought that was really profound.
12:54 The teachers don't know, sometimes,
12:56 what the environment is at home,
12:58 so, they didn't know
12:59 that this child didn't go to the library,
13:02 didn't go, not because they didn't want to,
13:05 but because the parent didn't even know how to do that.
13:08 So we have so many things to consider, am I right?
13:11 That's right, and the school is a mainstream experience
13:15 that's the way most of the people
13:17 who operate in the mainstream
13:20 of Society, go to school, and go to school successfully.
13:23 Many non-mainstream families,
13:27 they are intimidated by the school environment.
13:31 It's different from their own home environment
13:35 and so the school has to work to create an environment
13:38 in which they feel welcome and supported,
13:42 and the things they do that are considered bad,
13:47 or... they're considered,
13:49 they're not smart because they do them,
13:52 the school has to understand
13:54 that they often do
13:57 inappropriate, unacceptable things,
14:00 because they haven't been helped at home
14:02 to understand that that's inappropriate and unacceptable,
14:05 and what is acceptable and appropriate.
14:10 So, if it's not taught at home, it has to be taught at school,
14:15 and if you can teach it with the parents involved,
14:19 the parents themselves then begin to support it at home,
14:22 and that's what we really did in our school program
14:25 that made the difference.
14:26 And let's talk a bit about your school development program
14:31 because it's just an amazing effort
14:34 on your part and the part of your team,
14:37 tell us about the team,
14:39 tell us about what you did and how you implemented
14:43 this new environment for students.
14:46 I led the team in 1968, we went into two schools
14:54 that were the worst schools in the city,
14:56 they had like the worst academic achievement,
14:58 worst attendance, worst behavior,
15:00 and there were five of us,
15:02 Psychologist, Social Worker, Special Education Teacher,
15:06 and what we did, essentially, was
15:09 to apply all of the knowledge
15:12 of child, adolescent development and schools and school functions
15:17 to everything that went on in the school,
15:20 and all the behaviors and the way they structured
15:23 and set up the school
15:25 and the activities they had in the school
15:27 and how they planned them, we set it all up
15:30 so that they can plan and create an environment
15:33 that first allowed all the adults
15:35 to get along well together,
15:37 once the adults could get along well together,
15:41 they could plan and think and talk
15:43 about what they wanted for the children
15:45 and then what kind of conditions they had to create
15:48 in order to make that happen,
15:49 and then carry out the kinds of activities,
15:54 actually, the same kind of activities that I had at home,
15:58 we carried them out in the school.
16:01 Interesting story but, my mother,
16:04 after the program began to get attention
16:06 because we were turning schools around,
16:08 I would travel...
16:10 my mother wanted to know what it was that we did
16:14 because she couldn't imagine...
16:17 so I described all of the activities that we created
16:22 and having children feel warm and accepted and valued,
16:26 and teaching them basic skills and stuff,
16:29 she looked at me and she said, "But that's common sense. "
16:32 And then, she looked at me again and she said,
16:38 "and they pay you for that?"
16:40 Because what I described,
16:44 my father did that for us,
16:48 when we were growing up, so that... the big problem,
16:54 one of the biggest problems is that
16:57 the school and education itself,
16:59 the Education Enterprise, is managed by people
17:04 who are from the mainstream, Hmmm...
17:08 they grew up in the mainstream, and their assumption is that...
17:13 that the children have what they had,
17:15 Yes. many of the children
17:19 did not have it.
17:21 Now in years past,
17:23 those children would have just done badly in school,
17:26 dropped out, and gone in the farm,
17:29 the factory, a whole variety of places,
17:32 but they would earn a living,
17:34 take care of themselves and their family,
17:35 and they'd be okay.
17:37 Today you can't do that,
17:39 that same group of children who would have dropped out,
17:43 are now in school because they must be in school
17:46 and yet they still don't have the skills necessary
17:50 to be successful in school,
17:51 and it means that the school must provide those skills
17:56 along with their parents,
17:57 and involve their parents in the process.
18:01 And it's so amazing that, and a blessing that
18:06 you would analyze it down to those components
18:10 and realize what needs to be done
18:12 to bring that student up to grade level
18:15 to provide that kind of environment
18:18 that's going to approach the student holistically
18:22 and so, I mean, that is just... that's a real blessing,
18:27 I mean, I know that you had a lot of success
18:31 in these schools, what would you say
18:36 was one of the most challenging situations that you had
18:41 in terms of bringing everybody together
18:45 and helping everybody to work together
18:48 toward that common goal
18:50 of the holistic development of that child?
18:52 Well, the focus is so much on curriculum and structure
18:59 and assessment, now, that...
19:03 when we started, nobody thought we could
19:07 do it anyway so they left us alone.
19:09 They didn't think you could do it
19:12 so they just said, "Oh, go ahead, just go for it. "
19:15 And when it happened,
19:20 then a lot of people began to do it.
19:22 And now, the focus on children they once said "couldn't learn"
19:27 now they're insisting that they learn
19:30 and so, everything is on curriculum instruction
19:34 and assessment, without understanding
19:37 that those rich family experiences and interactions
19:42 provide children with what they need
19:45 to be available for the instruction
19:48 that they're trying to provide,
19:50 and that's the basic point right now.
19:53 And also, many of the preparatory institutions,
19:58 schools of education and others,
20:01 did not provide teachers and administrators with knowledge
20:05 of what they have to create in the way of their environment.
20:10 Good environment, good experiences,
20:12 good relationships that allow
20:15 teachers, administrators,
20:17 to become important people in the lives of children
20:20 and because they're important people,
20:23 they can motivate the children to learn
20:25 and they can engage them in the kinds of conversations,
20:29 discussions, activities that we had
20:31 that allowed us to be successful in school.
20:33 That's what they're going to have to do.
20:36 Yes, yes... how and why did you decide
20:39 to blend psychiatry and education...
20:42 where did that come from?
20:44 Well, you know, I was planning to become a
20:46 General Practitioner of Medicine in my hometown,
20:49 and it was during that time, when I was doing my internship,
20:54 that I had learned about the problems
20:56 my 3 friends were having, who were just as bright
21:00 just as able as anybody in my family,
21:03 anybody in my school, and we went to a
21:07 racially integrated upper-income school,
21:11 and they were bright as anybody,
21:13 and yet they were going on a downhill course in life
21:16 and it was there that I began to think about... why?
21:20 and what can I do about it.
21:22 And that led me away from that desire
21:27 to be a General Practitioner and to work...
21:31 volunteer work in poor neighborhoods
21:34 and eventually, thinking about public health
21:38 Psychiatry, Child Psychiatry, and then to work in schools
21:43 and it was in Psychiatry... Child Psychiatry
21:47 that I began to think about development
21:49 and then really realize that it was my family experience
21:55 that provided us with the development
21:57 that made it possible, then I argued to myself,
22:01 we ought to be able to approximate that environment
22:05 in schools and that's what we did.
22:08 That's tremendous, that's tremendous,
22:11 would you say that... you wrote a book,
22:16 "Raising Black Children"
22:18 what would you say are some of the differences...
22:23 I mean there are some common universal needs
22:27 that transcend culture and race and all that,
22:31 but what are some of the differences
22:32 in raising Black and Minority children versus White children?
22:37 Well, most of all, you have to help Black children
22:43 understand that they're okay,
22:45 as long as they're performing well,
22:47 trying well, making the effort
22:50 and being responsible, they're okay.
22:52 It's the other person and it's the environment
22:58 that discriminates against them, or dislikes them
23:03 or has negative things to say about them,
23:06 the problem is out there, not with the "self"
23:10 and as long as you're a positive, contributing
23:15 person... then... that you're not the problem,
23:20 and you're an adequate person.
23:23 Yeah, it takes many experiences, it takes help,
23:28 it took me... the fact that I was in church
23:32 experiencing positive feedback, but also in school,
23:39 where I had good White friends, and was treated well and fair
23:45 most of the time, teachers and all the like,
23:48 so there was a combination of experiences...
23:52 on which I had positive feedback,
23:54 and I was taught how to handle racial problems
24:00 so that when I got through confronting somebody
24:03 or dealing with a racial issue, things were better off for me,
24:07 after... than they were before,
24:09 and that doesn't always happen, when you confront a problem,
24:13 and you don't confront it in a way
24:16 that is useful to you or anybody else.
24:18 An example, I had a teacher
24:21 and this is rare,
24:24 most of my teachers were very fair,
24:27 but I had a teacher who gave me a grade
24:30 that was below what it should be,
24:33 given that it was almost what... the top...
24:36 it was one point behind the top student's grade...
24:38 two students' grades,
24:39 30 points ahead of the next student,
24:41 I started talking with her,
24:44 she started convincing me
24:46 she tried to convince me that a "B" was a good grade,
24:48 and finally she said,
24:51 "Well, you know, I just don't think you're capable
24:53 of making an 'A'"
24:55 and that was the end of the discussion
24:57 because I knew what that meant. Hmmm... hmmm...
24:59 I went out and in the next 10 weeks,
25:02 I made the highest score in the room.
25:06 I didn't get in her face, I didn't argue,
25:09 I just went out and demonstrated that I could do it
25:13 and that I deserved that grade.
25:15 Now, that's what you have to help your kids...
25:18 the black kids... understand. Yes.
25:21 You demonstrate your excellence
25:24 and you don't "mouth" your excellence.
25:27 Yes... that is so profound,
25:33 "you demonstrate your excellence"
25:36 and what you needed... see... you could have gone
25:42 two routes with it, you could have shrunk
25:45 like... shrunk back, and you could have said,
25:48 you know, "Whoa, okay, I guess I just can't. "
25:51 Or you could do what you did,
25:54 and say, "I will show you, I don't have to say anything,
25:58 I will just show you,
25:59 I will make the top mark in the class... "
26:02 And this just negated the whole argument.
26:05 It just negated the whole argument
26:07 and what you got at home, gave you that foundation
26:12 to approach the situation that way.
26:15 That's right, that's right,
26:17 now, actually I have seen my mother, especially,
26:21 handle situations... just like that.
26:26 But, always handled it in a way
26:29 that she helped people look at what they were doing
26:32 that was not right, and not fair, and not just,
26:36 and often without saying a word,
26:38 just through demonstrating her excellence
26:40 so that we learned how to handle racial problems
26:46 and all kinds of problems through interactions at home.
26:49 And that is key, that we as parents
26:54 provide an environment at home for our children
26:59 that shows them, it demonstrates how to perform
27:04 in times of crisis and conflicts
27:08 and your parents did that.
27:10 We've got about 30 seconds, Doc, give us a closing thought,
27:14 whatever you want a parent out there to know about
27:17 how they can help their child, 30 seconds...
27:20 Well, I think "caring" is most important
27:24 and you don't have to worry about making a mistake
27:28 because they love you and you love them
27:32 and they will know that, and if you do make a mistake,
27:35 you apologize for the things that you did
27:40 and let them know that the reason was because
27:44 you are trying to have them do their very best,
27:47 and you want them to do their very best.
27:50 Yes... Thank you so much Dr. Jim,
27:54 you have provided such great information,
27:57 please come back and bless us again.
27:59 Well, thank you.
28:00 Thank you so much for joining us
28:02 this is the end of our Program, join us next time
28:04 it just wouldn't be the same without you.


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Revised 2015-08-26