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Home > Dr. Ruth White: Diversity in the Heartland
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Dr. Ruth White: Diversity in the Heartland
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by Dave , Ekrem
New York, New York
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| | "The Cultural Diversity Lady"
Say "Iowa" to most people and they probably will think of cornfields, cornfields, and more cornfields. Ask the same person to describe an "Iowan," and you'll likely hear something about a ruddy, solidly built farmer wearing denim overalls and a John Deere cap. The stereotype isn't without basis: according to U.S. Census data for the year 2000, 96 percent of Iowans are white, and the mainstay of the state's economy is agriculture.
Dr. Ruth White knows a different Iowa. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she knows Iowa in greater detail, having seen it up close from the vantage point of Washington High School in Cedar Rapids during a 30-year teaching career. In that time, she has come to be known by students as "the cultural diversity lady." Dr. White says that her professional life grows out of her experiences as an African-American in a largely non-African-American setting. She has started many organizations geared toward understanding cultural diversity and assisting minority students.
According to Washington High principal Ralph Plagman, "Ruth White has done more than any other person to lead our consistent celebration of our school's diversity and to steer us in a path that has, at least for the last couple of decades, avoided the type of conflict and misunderstandings that so many other schools have encountered. We are tremendously indebted to Ruth for her leadership."
She founded and runs Washington High's Cultural Diversity Organization (CDO), which sponsors activities such as Cultural Diversity Week, an ethnic food fair, a fashion show of garments from around the world, and fall multicultural workshops. Nick Zakrasek, who took Dr. White's AP English Literature class his senior year and will attend Brown University in the fall, says that the ethnic food fair is "very impressive -- it fills our entire courtyard with stands and the entire school lines up for it because everybody loves to taste all the different foods.... There's everything from coconut ice cream from Africa to Greek dolmades, and there are poetry readings and dances from different cultures." He estimates that more than 50 ethnicities are represented each year at the fair.
Increasing Access and Equity
Another program initiated by Dr. White is the Academy for Scholastic and Personal Success, a summer program for African-American students. Admission to the Academy is open, and students from area middle schools and other high schools enroll as well as Washington High students. The six-week program, now in its twelfth year, focuses on African-American culture and self-awareness. Although it is not designed to prepare students for the rigors of Advanced Placement, some do find that the self-confidence and skills they gain are assets in AP courses. Dr. White says that "because it is a matter of self-confidence as much as it is skills, and my belief is that students have lost track of who they are... we try to help them to understand through teaching history and content materials that are grounded in the culture what a legacy they have, what a rich history they come from, and [the] responsibility they have to that."
A few years ago, Dr. White attended a College Board conference in Washington, D.C., which focused on the need to increase the numbers of minority students in Advanced Placement classes. She returned to Cedar Rapids determined to increase access and equity for minority students at Washington, which offers 22 AP courses but has low minority participation. With the approval of her principal, she started a program called Toward Advanced Placement (TAP) with the goals of instilling minority freshmen and sophomores with the confidence and skills needed to succeed in AP courses. Admission to TAP is selective, and students are recruited based on teacher recommendations and middle school records. Classes are limited to 18 students so that Dr. White can develop close working relationships with them, and she expects parents to become involved as well. Fifty percent of the first-year participants went on to AP courses.
"TAP's focus is on English and social-studies skills," says Dr. White. "We work on comprehension skills, we work on writing skills, we've done grammar. This term, we're working on the essay as a form and using the essay as a template for studying the test format that AP uses and that ACT uses. We're extracting passages, for example, from James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, and requiring the students to understand the vocabulary and requiring that they look for an essential passage or sentence that they can paraphrase. And then we take that passage and formulate some multiple-choice questions. Based on that, [we] talk about what the multiple-choice question requires of a student, where the distractor is, all of that kind of thing."
Passing the Torch
White is retiring this year and will administer the Academy, the CDO, and TAP next year on a contract basis as she mentors Akwi Nji to take her place. Nji, who graduated from Washington in 1997 and was a student of Dr. White's, says that her life was changed by a trip she took to Atlanta, Georgia, organized by Dr. White in 1995. Nji had not previously visited a place with such a large and vibrant African-American community, and she was inspired. The trip changed the way she viewed herself as an African-American woman, and she came to understand the importance of a college degree. "It literally was a turning point in my life," says Nji.
During her junior year at the University of Iowa, she wrote Dr. White a letter, telling her how much she had learned in her AP class and how well prepared she had been for college. Then, about a year later, she called again to say she was considering a teaching career and asked to shadow White in the classroom. "She was my AP teacher when I was at Washington. She made a huge impression on me and is somebody that through the years has always influenced my thoughts and my decisions in some ways. I feel like it's such a privilege [to continue the diversity programs] because I know how incredible she is as a teacher and as somebody who is focused on cultural awareness."
Dr. White's work will clearly have a lasting effect on Washington High School, on Cedar Rapids, and on the world beyond.
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