Morgan County Primary School

February, 2007 

Morgan County schools have certainly gotten a great deal of good press lately. The High School JROTC Color Guard won a regional competition, the MCES Chorus just got back from a trip to Savannah where they were chosen to perform to the Georgia Music Educators Association (an extremely prestigious invitation), and the High School just pulled off an amazing production of Godspell. (If you did not see this bold drama, you certainly missed a treat.) Perhaps more importantly, educators from all over the country came to visit MCHS because of its innovative course offerings, and Minnie Peek (one of the Board of Education members) was recognized as a civil rights pioneer during Black History Month as one of the very first African-American teachers in Oconee County in an integrated school.  

But it’s easy to read headlines and wonder what’s really going on at our schools. When I campaigned to become a Board member, I vowed to make our schools more transparent. To that end, I spent two entire days visiting with our four schools. 

What a joy it is to enter the halls of Morgan County Primary School! I’ve been in schools from the Far East to the Middle East and everywhere in between, and I’ve never seen such a warm, welcoming faculty.  

Engaged is the adjective that leaps to mind. Teachers, Para-pros, and parent volunteers are engaged with the children – on the children’s level in their wee little desks– in the noble effort of learning. Successes are measured in delighted faces – the smile of recognition of a child who has triumphed over a challenging verb. 

“Tiny Town” is an absolute delight. I know the paper did an entire expose last week, but it’s difficult to capture the eclectic and vibrant spirit with mere ink and words. The venues are fabulous, the scene is fun and the children are absolutely engaged. “Panda Cash” is exchanged with the exuberance and exactitude of a merchant in the Istanbul bazaar. I was served by a six year-old waiter and entertained by dancing divas under a spinning mirror ball.  

But what impresses me more is the emphasis on reading. Reading is fundamental – without it nothing else follows. MCPS has a team of special reading teachers, a veritable fleet of Para-pros, and loyal parent volunteers who come in to help our children read. When my children were younger I used to do this myself. It was hard, rewarding work. It’s the kind of work that changes a generation.  

I’m happy to hear we’re returning to phonics. There I am, helping a child read a book when he gets stuck on the word “plain”. The teacher makes a sweeping motion with her arm, a phonics-based set of gestures kids have learned, and the child immediately sound out the word. I’m impressed. I have always thought the “whole-word” approach (which is sometimes described as “word-guessing”) was fundamentally flawed in that it required children to memorize an infinite list of words instead of learning to “attack” a word using a set of easy rules. Call me a moron, but I like easy instead of hard, and it’s easy to see how this young man succeeded using phonics. 

Which leads me to the main point of this article: parents, you can not read to your child enough. One of the greatest challenges MCPS faces is that children come to them from such widely-different educational levels. Yes! Children start kindergarten at different educational levels! According to a study done by the University of Kansas; at age 3, children coming from professional families knew twice as many words as those from disadvantaged families. Further, they found that parents from professional families spoke to their children three times as much. It doesn’t cost anything to speak kindly to your children, and with free public libraries it costs very little to read. 

Don’t let your child start so far behind! Talk to him, encourage him, but most of all read to him. Education is the great equalizer and education begins with reading. MCPS is a great place and they do, indeed, work miracles. But none of us should think that schools can do it by themselves. If you love your children then you read to your children - so that when they go to school they are ready to learn. 
 

Dave Belton

Buckhead, GA