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War on Poverty Turns to Art Valencia Community College plans to
offer By: Scott Powers WHAT IT IS: For eight months, students would attend two 90-minute classes each week to discuss Plato's dialogues, Shakespeare's plays, Martin Luther King's letters, Renior's paintings, and dozens of other items of philosophy, the arts, literature and history. Valencia Community College plans to take Socrates to the streets of Orlando, teaching literature to the homeless, art history to struggling single mothers and philosophy to the working poor. The college plans to offer the Bard Clemente Course in the Humanities to the impoverished, hoping to help them climb from poverty by inspiring them to believe in the power of their own minds. The course, begun by a maverick sociologist-philosopher in New York City in 1995, is slowly but steadily spreading the country. Orlando could be one of 35 cities offering the program next year. The idea behind the program defies traditional liberal and conservative notions about poverty. It rejects both welfare and vocational training as failed policies. Clemente founder Earl Shorris dismisses criticism that offering ideas and art to people who need food and jobs is a waste of time and money. He contends that more than half the program's students so far have gone on to enroll in colleges or find better jobs. "We teach the humanities, which a lot of conservatives favor. But we teach the poor. And we're concerned about the poor. And about the question of citizenship," Shorris said. "We think this is a way to make real citizens out of people who are non-citizens." Valencia hopes to raise $25,000 Valencia Humanities Professor John Scolaro is setting up the course locally in partnership with The Ripple Effect homeless advocacy organization. They hope to have the program up within a year. If it works as it has in new York, Chicago, Milwaukee, Seattle and a handful of other urban and rural areas, Valencia would enroll 20-25 impoverished but literate students per class. For eight months, they would attend two 90-minute classes each week, conducted somewhere near downtown and taught by college professors on the faculties of Valencia, Rollins College, the University of Central Florida or other colleges. Using the Socratic method - a professor provoking debate and looking for logical conclusions - the students would discuss Plato's dialogues, Shakespeare's plays, Martin Luther King's letters, Rita Dove's poems, Renoir's paintings, Lewis and Clark's journals and dozens of other items of philosophy, the arts, literature and history. According to Shorris and others involved in previous classes, those students who stay more than three or four weeks get hooked. "It definitely inspired me to go back to school. It made me feel I could do it," said Christine Schnuph, 32, of Tampa, a low-wage secretary and single mother of four who took the course in Tampa last year and plans to enroll in college next fall. "Maybe I'm just smarter than I thought I was." The program was named for the Roberto Clemente Family Guidance Center in New York City, where it was founded, and for Bard College, a liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y. that runs it nationally. Graduates get six college credits, either from Bard or from a local college if the local College can dos o. But Shorris says it is not about getting more people into college. It's about getting more people into their own mind's potential. "Our aim is to teach humanities to poor people, to get them to understand that they can think and can be valuable, participating citizens," he said. Not every Clemente Course has succeeded, including one offered by the University of South Florida in Tampa and St. Petersburg in 2000 and 2001. High dropout rate But the USF dropout rate was high - more than two-thirds of students each year - and recruitment was a struggle. The program has been suspended. Programs in Los Angeles; Anchorage, Alaska; and a few other cities also have shut down. Jones, coordinator of USF's College of Arts and Sciences Community Initiative, said almost all the students there wanted to stay, but far too many found it impossible. "These people are living their lives where everything is marginal," she said. "If they have a car that needs $60 in repairs, then that means they're out of the program for weeks. Many of them are single moms. We offer child care but they face a horrendous schedule. The slightest little thing can throw them off." Valencia has not decided whether it would simply offer the Bard program or try to fashion its own. A location, recruitment plan and curriculum need to be developed. Child care, transportation and other support services need to be arranged. Five professors also need to be hired, at $3,000 per class. ___________________________________ Scott Powers can be reached at spowers@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5441 |