Celebrities, Teachers Offer Kids Lessons in Inspiration

In Kathryn Holcomb’s second-grade class at Dickison Elementary School in Compton, Dan Jansen talked Friday about his Olympic experience.

Jansen had tried to compete in the 1988 Calgary Olympics the same day his sister died of leukemia. A favorite in the race, he fell. It would be six years later--in the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Norway--before he won a gold medal.

“Just because you work real hard and try doesn’t mean it always works out,” he said.

Jansen was one of a number of celebrities who went into Los Angeles-area schools this week at the request of Teach for America, trying to inspire youngsters to dream big while selling the volunteer teaching program’s mission.

Jansen’s description of his persistence despite the personal tragedy of his sister’s death had special meaning at Dickison, where fourth-grader Selwyn Leflore Jr. was killed by a stray bullet on his way home from school three weeks ago.

“When he told us he had fallen,” said Blanca Zuniga, a third-grader in Kevin Fleming’s class and a Student Council representative, “I was thinking he must keep trying because that is what my father tells me.

“When I was taking karate, I couldn’t win the orange belt,” she said. “I told my dad, ‘I can’t do it,’ but my father said I have to keep trying. I think I will go back and try now.”

The brainchild of a Princeton graduate, Teach for America is a national corps of recent college graduates who make a commitment to spend two years teaching in public schools that lack sufficient resources and have chronic teacher shortages.

Holcomb and Fleming are two of eight Teach for America teachers at Dickison.

Jansen, 32, said he wanted to communicate some life lessons to the children. “Sometimes kids remember things like this. I can remember parts of third grade,” he said.

Others participating in the Teach for America week in the Los Angeles area included entertainment executives Sherry Lansing and Ron Meyer, actors Andrew Shue and Mike Farrell, banker Alison Winter, political commentator Arianna Huffington, broadcaster Pat Harvey and Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles). Former U.S. Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz participated in New York and Oakland, respectively.

Greg Good, executive director of Teach for America in Los Angeles, said bringing people like Jansen to the schools increases the children’s sense of possibilities.

“Eyes on me, bottoms on the chair,” instructed Fleming, 26. “They are really excited today.”

Three hundred Teach for America recruits currently work in the Los Angeles chapter, where they teach more than 27,000 children in the Compton, Los Angeles, Pasadena and Long Beach school districts.

“I love being around the kids,” said Fleming, a graduate of Xavier University. “When it clicks in their brains, it is great.”

The need for teachers has been magnified by state size-reduction programs. At Dickison, 20 out of 38 teachers are in their first or second year of teaching. Principal Pattrice Sewell said she is very happy to have the eight Teach for America members on her staff.

She said the first year is difficult because the program’s recruits start with less experience than those with a teaching certificate.