If you own cable television or listen to the radio, surely you’ve heard all the hoopla over Oprah’s new girls’ school.

I think her project is great.  A lot of young girls will have an opportunity to get a quality education in a safe (very comfy, I might add) environment thanks to Oprah’s two new schools, The Seven Fountains Primary School and The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. 

As we know here at The Women’s Foundation, supporting women and girls means supporting families and communities.

But, being the diverse world that it is, there is always room for disagreement and people who will voice questions or concerns about something.  When I first heard that some people were unhappy with Oprah’s schools, I thought “Come on, even something like building new schools?  Get a grip.” 

Of course, I believe in free speech, and as I always say, people should do and think “whatever floats their boat.”  So, even though I don’t agree with most of the negative backlash, I think it’s interesting and worth exploring.  I’m curious to see what other people out there think about these contrasting points of view.

The positives are some of the obvious, like the fact that these girls will receive a better education with a promising future to pursue their passions.  Many lived in unsafe neighborhoods and traveled far to school, but with Oprah’s campus-like environment with dorms, the girls get to interact with other girls on the same property.  They have healthier diets, more clothing, comfy beds, the works.

I admit that some of the facility equipment may be extravagant (like the fireplace) as some of the negative comments say, but at the same time, this is a woman worth millions, what did we think she would build? 

Oprah goes all out when it comes to building new houses and presenting gifts, and believes that everyone is worthy, as anyone who watches her show can see.  I can go on and on with the good stuff, but it’s not hard to read or hear about it somewhere, so I’ll stop here.

On to some of the more pessimistic outlooks. To my surprise, the rules limit family visits and communications.  Cell phone use and emailing are not allowed during the school week, and girls can only visit their families once a month.  Family visitors have to be approved by the school at least two weeks in advance, and they are not allowed to bring “treats” such as chocolates and other things considered “junk food” to their girls.  One mother commented that her child called her crying, and the mom wondered whether the school was more like a prison.

I admit some of the rules are a bit strict, but I think they were framed in the interest of the students’ safety and keeping the campus as uniform as possible.  It is Oprah’s first stab at this, so perhaps rules will flex later.  She views the rules as “safe,” not “strict.”  A lot of American public schools and university rules have seemingly ludicrous rules, too.  And, healthy food makes a difference in physical and mental performance, so I’m all for blocking the junk food (I should take that advice myself).  I thought back to the Supersize Me food documentary and the segment on how schools for at-risk children feed organic, healthy foods and how it does correlate with their improved behavior.

Then there are the more controversial debates, like why she built schools in Africa versus America, and how the school is elite.  I’ve also heard that the girls attending the schools cannot become pregnant, but I haven’t found legitimate information to confirm that.  I didn’t see this on TV for myself, but apparently Oprah answered the America vs. Africa question with something along the lines that the children of America were more interested in iPods, shoes, and other brand items instead of learning.

I don’t totally agree with that point of view, if indeed Oprah or someone else said it, but she’s not totally off the map. In our culture, many children are become materialistic at a young age.  A lot are not taught the meaning of a good education, and the real things to get fulfillment out of.  Consumerism and consumption are priority in America, and I can understand in some way why this may have influenced her to build the schools in Africa, and not here right now. It’s not the best or likely the only explanation, but I’m okay with it.

Education is a key to future success and I’m glad for a new school to be built anywhere.

I think Oprah is making an effort to solve a root problem. A good education from the start is like pouring water over the seeds to grow good flowers.  (By the way, William Ryan’s Blaming the Victim  is a another good read to add to your list about solving problems at the surface vs. attacking the real sources.) 

Yes, the school didn’t help students in her own country, but she does other things over here, and I think we should take these new schools in stride and not condemn the restrictions in place.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not praising every little thing about the schools, I’m just saying that I think the good outweighs the bad and as the administration and Oprah get more experience, they will only become better–and the extreme comments that can’t find one good thing with the schools seem a bit out of bounds.

Food for thought.

Well, last week I raged, somewhat, about the lack of educational awareness among public schools on women’s history during National Women’s History Month. 

So, I did a little something about it.  Not much, but hey, it’s a start.

I decided to write memos to each school principal in my county.  Admittedly, this list ran long, so I picked about 10 out of the bunch.  I sent each of them a one-page, non-overwhelming, respectful memo asking if they encourage their teachers to teach women’s history in March, and if not, why not.

But, ladies and gentlemen, this blog is not about divulging the boring (But hey, it was my first time taking a stab at writing to strangers!) details of my memo…oh no, this is about my little personal realization that this is grassroots activism!

At The Women’s Foundation, one of our Stepping Stones strategies is “advocacy and leadership development,” and it’s interesting for me to see how my little project was, in some form, advocacy and leadership.

I could have sat around and complained all day, or I could take action and do something.

Which I did.

I guess it starts like that, just getting up and doing something. You focus on what voices you want to emphasize, how you’re going to do it, how you’re going to engage your audience, and it just keeps on rolling!

Unfortunately, the month is almost rolling out so my memo is a bit late, but regardless, the whole “taking action” thing felt great.

Who knows what I’m bound to start doing in the future.

As I conducted some research for National Women’s History Month, I read a sentence that reminded me about the lack of awareness and recognition of NWHM in our schools, and quite frankly, I got irritated.

Very irritated.  

The sentence explained that, “March, as National Women’s History Month, has been part of our cultural calendar for over a generation. Yet each year, we receive countless complaints about the lack of coverage of National Women’s History Month in the press, radio, and television. Further concerns are expressed about bookstores and libraries that often don’t even put up a poster or a Women’s History Month display.  Most discouraging is that Women’s History Month is often not even mentioned in the schools.”

I thought, “Hey, yeah, I have no memory of learning about NWHM in middle school, junior high school or high school!”

I’m sure staff at my schools had a few posters, and put a blurb somewhere in those monthly one-page newsletters, but there was no pedagogy of substance that lit students’ interest. 

Sadly, I don’t think it was until the beginning of my undergraduate years that I learned about NWHM, and Native American History Month, in depth. 

It’s one thing to designate vital contributions of a group of people to one month, but then to barely teach it to our youth is another.

As my mind reflected on earlier years, and my television played an MTV marathon of Exposed (a very cheesy show where a woman goes out with two potential dates and later reveals to them that they have been hooked to a lie detector test), I wondered, “Couldn’t the producers at MTV have been just a little more pro-active considering the countless number of young people that tune in after school everyday?  Couldn’t they have shown some special on the first female videos that got played on their network?” 

Maybe their early education lacked substance like mine.  For now, I’ll conclude that instead of the real reasons.

McDonald’s has a 365Black campaign to advocate Black History Month every day, which is great.  But why not also have something like that for NWHM?  365Black provides a new tidbit every day on black history.  It’d be nice if they did that for other histories, too. 

I started thinking about more little things, like how a great quote on International Women’s Day in the paper was neatly tucked in the bottom left corner of the paper.  And how the women’s basketball information in my school newspaper was frequently relegated to the back pages.

I remembered, The Mind Has No Sex: Women in the Origins of Modern Science, by Londa Schiebinger and recalled the many historical contributions women made to science while they were excluded from public recognition for them. Maria Merian was a leading entomologist in the 18th century.  Maria Cunitz, Maria Winklemann, and Maria Eimmart (that’s a lot of Maria’s) finally received a little recognition for their scientific contributions, after Copernicus and Galileo, of course (even though the Maria’s finished their work first). 

The contributions of women in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, botany, science, the arts, and so on and so on make it all the more ludicrous to relegate a month to women that isn’t even reinforced in many schools.  (This is, of course, just as other groups don’t receive their dues.)

I read The Mind Has No Sex in adulthood.  I wish I had known facts like these earlier.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great to designate a specific time for the country to honor the achievements of a group, but I think it’s fair to say that women’s history isn’t taught to kids or observed as it deserves to be–in March or at any other time.

All children deserve to gain knowledge on the successes women have made and continue to make on a basic level, beginning in their early educational years.

This weekend I thumbed through a book on the benefits of secondary education for girls in Africa, and learned that many times, teachers extract female students from class to perform cooking duties, run errands, and clean.  Of course, this is a different culture, but the pattern of educational institutions failing to pay their due respects to women prevails.

I’m not trying to sound like someone who blames our schools completely for my own lack of knowledge. 

I, as an adult, am responsible for learning new things.  There comes an age where we become pro-active, but it makes a difference when our schools disseminate the correct lessons early on.  And, of course, all schools aren’t like my schools; plenty of my peers had a rich education on their culture and history early on.

Nevertheless, we can’t count on MTV or McDonald’s, even though they cater to many young minds of America, so we need the schools, where kids are from morning to evening, to talk about this.  Accessible and quality secondary education is vital, because schools hold the key to our future.  They are a powerful vehicle that can make HWHM something to remember.

So what will I do to reverse the bad cycle my home schools generate?  I am not off the hook to do something.

More on that in the next installment…