Treasure Chest Opens Students’ Minds to Cultures : Education: African and black American history, crafts and literature are vividly exposed in classrooms in a display organized by the Multicultural Arts Council.

Among the parades, cultural fairs and other celebrations marking Black History Month, some Orange County youngsters may receive their most vivid exposure to the African and African American culture from a display in their schools.

The African American Treasure Chest, a collection of 50 items depicting the history and culture of Africans and black Americans, has circulated through county classrooms since 1987. The display includes an African drum, mask, shield, spear, and bracelet, along with books, inventions, crafts and literature of black Americans.

“People have little knowledge of African American history in Orange County,” said Nancy King, a college professor and vice president of the Multicultural Arts Council of Orange County, a 9-year-old group that tries to promote cultural awareness. “One of the greatest complaints I’ve always had as an educator is that minority history is not taught in schools.”

To address that shortcoming, a group of volunteers gathered the items and wrote the teaching materials that accompany them. Valued at approximately $2,000, the African American Treasure Chest’s contents are the most elaborate of nine separate collections of materials illustrating the cultures of different ethnic groups.

Included among the other collections, also organized by the Multicultural Arts Council, are displays on Chinese, Iranian, Mexican and Vietnamese cultures. Each chest also includes material on contributions made by Americans with heritages in those lands, said Helen Lin, the volunteer chairwoman of the treasure chest committee.

The African American Treasure Chest comes with written materials to help the teachers present the array of information on the culture. The information was compiled by the African American Council, a subgroup of the Multicultural Arts Council.

“We encourage the teachers to present the chest. That’s why we spent years developing the materials,” Lin said. “We don’t want it to be like a museum, where they walk through and that’s it. The purpose is for the teacher to be involved.”.

The material is exhibited in many schools each February during Black History Month observances. For the African American collection--but not all the others--volunteers are available to present the material.

William E. Fanning Elementary’s principal, David Biniasz, said virtually all 22 teachers in his school have brought their classes to see the collection. In general, he said, students and staff alike have been receptive to it.

Even with the instructional guides, teachers can be unfamiliar with the treasure chest’s contents. Last Thursday, for example, a second-grade teacher largely overlooked material from African Americans, telling her class “this treasure chest comes from Africa. Who knows where Africa is?”

Noting the treasure chest’s Kwanzaa display, the teacher told her students, “The Africans celebrate Kwanzaa.” On the plexiglass above the display was a sheet explaining that Kwanzaa is a holiday that originated in the United States 28 years ago, the creation of a Cal State Long Beach professor.

“I have to admit most of my teachers didn’t have the opportunity to read the accompanying material (placed around the exhibit) and digest that material. (The teacher) came to me and felt badly that (portions of her talk were) inaccurate. She said she hadn’t had a lot of time to prepare,” Biniasz said.

Davida Parham, a founding member of the African American Council who helped prepare the treasure chest and the written materials that describe its contents, said she was “concerned about the chest being lent out to school districts and untruths being spoken with it. I think (it) is best displayed when it comes with a volunteer who has worked in developing it and is familiar with the curriculum plan that goes with (it).”

Biniasz said he chose not to have a volunteer present the material because “we don’t have one big assembly hall, and we thought it might be better to have an individual experience . . . a personal touch.”

King said she wants to ensure that teachers receive more thorough instruction from the Multicultural Arts Council before presenting the treasure chest, and will bring the matter to the its board of directors.