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THE WASHINGTON POST - NOV.
By Henry W. Pierce lwere among more than 2500,
PITTSBURGH, Nov. 18ipersons attending the four-|
The Nation’s schools are using|day American Anthropogical!
rene as Fain ton Association meeting here,
not educating them adequate- Anthropologists, who tradi-
ly, a leading social scientist |tionally have studied such
icharged here today. things as tribal cultures and
Oe Estelle Fuchs, anthro- man’s remote past, have
aa
tee BE Ce eo ou tatown a spurt of interest in
controversial “Pickets at the poverty groups within the
Gates,” said schools tend to | United States. A Session on
freeze underprivileged - chil-|Poverty drew a standing-room;
dren into a lower-class way|Ccrowd here, while sessions on,
of life. tribal customs and on baboon!
Washington schools are a,Dehavior drew only scattered’
:|prime example of this, she |4ttendance. :
| said. Dr. Fuchs, one of six speak-
She also cited schools inj@ts on “The Culture of Pov.
-|Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Bos-/€Tty,” said’ schools are hard-'
-lton and New York. jens eel ane cuitereces|
4 : ‘between middle-class Ameri-'
Anthropologist Dissents ‘eans and lower-class groups.
19, 1966
Teachers Seen Using Sluins as Excuse
[ae is incorrect All the an-
teach the youngsters properly. peroneren es Here. have main-:}
- : ained trat the culture of pov-
Cites Example lerty concept has been misused.
hSe told about a New York, But perhaps it’s our own point
City teacher in an underprivi-| of view that needs changing.”
ledged school district who took; He charged that anthropolo-;
her students to the airport as:gists are “very much involved
part of a class project. lin their own middle-class cul-
“It was the first time those tures.”
children had been out of their!
own neighborhood,” she de-,
clared, adding: {
“They were amazed when -
they got their first glimpse of -
an escalator. One of them'
asked whether it tickled if you’!
excuse their own failure to
|
|rode it. That teacher used the’
jincident to prove her students
hadn't the
learn.” |
Dr. Fuchs called this atti-,
tude “typical among many,
teachers. }
intelligence’ to
But a Wahsington University |
“School administrators are’
anthropologist, Dr. Charles A. using the ‘culture of poverty’) Not Scheduled |
Valentine, disagreed with her./concept to absolve themselves) At the end of the session,
‘Dr. Valentine charged an-|from responsibility,” she de- Dr. Valentine, who was not a’
thropologists with failure to'elared.
live among underprivileged | Teachers, she said, often use)
groups as a means of study-\in such terms as “psychologi-;
jscheduled speaker, stood up:
and declared:
‘It seems to me there has)
ing them.
“Anthropologists can study
a South Seas culture and find
order, but they go into Harlem
and find nothing but disorder.
They study our own slum-
dwellers with questionnaires
and interviews; they are ap-
parently too afraid to go and
live as one of them,” he as-
serted.
this: we are good anthropolo-
gists overseas and bad anthro.
pologists-at home.”
Dr. Valentine said he in-
tends to “live among the poor”
as part of a study he is un-
dertaking next year in the
He added: “It boils down to!
Brownsville section of Brook-
lyn.
Four-Day Meeting
Dr. Fuchs and Dr. Valentine
cally unready” and “cuturally been a common thread Tun-|
impoverished home life” to,ning through these discussions
t