Educators and Students Decry Lack of Black History Lessons : Schools: Efforts to teach about the achievements of African-Americans are likely to be stepped up in February.

Sophelia Locke hadn’t been born when Malcolm X was killed. She’s too young to remember the civil rights marches. Even Jesse Jackson’s first push for the Democratic party presidential nomination is vague.

But the 17-year-old clearly remembers the stories her father shared about African-American culture. Her father told her where he was when Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down. At age 5, it was her first lesson in black history.

“My father was in high school” when King was shot, said Sophelia, a student at Ocean View High School in Huntington Beach. “The teacher wouldn’t let him go home even though he was crying. I can still see him telling me that story, his face was so serious. I knew back then how important Martin Luther King was to us.”

Now, Sophelia not only knows about the importance of King, she’s also aware of the contributions of other black Americans including Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman and author Richard Wright.

Lessons on the contributions and achievements of African-Americans are likely to be stepped up for Sophelia and her classmates in February, which is nationally recognized as Black History Month. In Orange County, where African-Americans account for a scant 2% of the student population in public schools, many educators and students have bemoaned the lack of lessons on the contributions of black Americans, and say the meaning of Black History Month is often lost on the rest of the populace.

“People think that Black History Month is just for black students. That’s a mistake,” said Judy Sampson, a teacher at Sierra Intermediate School in Santa Ana and adviser to the African-American Culture Club at Tustin High School. “When we learn more about various cultures, we learn that much more about ourselves. There’s such a lack of understanding and ignorance of the contributions of other groups. Students have to realize that without a history--a complete history--you have no future.”

That message, however, has been slow to catch on. Officials at many schools in Orange County said they have no special plans to commemorate Black History Month, and Sampson said the lack of instruction on black history in general leaves students ignorant about African-American contributions.

She pointed out, for example, that many students have no idea why Martin Luther King Jr. is honored with a national holiday in January.

“I’ve heard some students say he was a slave,” said Sampson, an eighth-grade language arts instructor who was chosen as one of four 1992 Orange County teachers of the year. “They don’t know about Jim Crow, the boycotts, or apartheid. It’s unbelievable. But kids are willing to learn about black history and they are anxious to know about the truth.”

Sampson, who has been busily preparing for Black History Month with lesson plans, quizzes and an assembly to draw students together, and other teachers are diligently working to inject more lessons about blacks into the classroom.

The need to emphasize those lessons is especially important during Black History Month, which offers an opportunity to debunk stereotypes about African-Americans, said Nancy King, president of the Historical and Cultural Foundation of Orange County.

“There’s so few blacks in Orange County that students do not have opportunity to interact with black culture,” King said. “The only time students are exposed and get any information about black contributions in the U.S. is during Black History Month. That’s the only time when it is planned in the curriculum. So far, it’s not been integrated in the whole curriculum and it should be.”

Some educators, however, said schools are moving toward a more integrated curriculum. Although black history is not emphasized in textbooks currently recommended by the state, African-American heroes are mentioned throughout California’s social science curriculum guidelines, said Don Carlos, an instructional specialist at the Garden Grove Unified School District.

“We value the multicultural aspects of our society,” Carlos said. “It’s really something to point out to the kids. As I go through the new books, I see there are more illustrations and highlights about the African-American presence than ever before.”

For Ocean View School student Deirdre Harris, it’s a step in the right direction, but still short of the lessons she’d like to see about her heritage. She said she wants her classmates to reach beyond the Civil War and slavery for Black History Month.

“We don’t see black heroes in our textbooks,” said Deirdre, 17. “History sees us as only slaves. They don’t see the heroes.”

At Ocean View, only about 30 of the 2,080 students are African-American. Many think the only black heroes are in music and sports, said teacher Gayle Byrne, who advises a black studies group on the campus. Students forget or simply do not think of African-American heroes in other fields, Byrne said.

“We have to teach beyond sport heroes and entertainment. We have to also teach about poets and writers,” Byrne said.

Although the school’s black studies group meets weekly, some African-American students say they wish they had more opportunities to enjoy and share their culture. Throughout February, the black studies group will provide daily announcements and sponsor an assembly on black history.

* HISTORY QUIZ: Some sample questions about notable black Americans. B6