By Marc Ransford
Communications Manager

MUNCIE, Ind. -- Teaching children about African-Americans and other cultures should not be limited to one month, says a Ball State University educator.

Students can learn more and better understand other cultures if the history of various races is presented throughout the school year, says Theresa Greenwood, a primary education professor.

Nationally, schools concentrate on particular subjects during certain months. February is African-American History Month and March is Women's History Month.

"Too many schools concentrate on African-Americans during February and never talk about the subject during the rest of the year," said Greenwood, who teaches academically gifted students in kindergarten through fifth grade at Ball State's Burris Laboratory School.

"When you limit your teaching to just one month, you give students a sense of a start and finish," she said. "African-Americans have made contributions throughout America's history.

Blacks were in North America before the Mayflower came and are making major contributions today."

Greenwood, an African-American public school instructor since the early 1960s, believes that Black History Month was desperately needed during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and the ensuing years.

In her classes at Burris Laboratory School, which are predominately white, students learn about the contributions of African-Americans through various subjects, including poetry,  mathematics and African proverbs.

In addition to standard reading materials, youngsters learn by using posters and coloring books. Even a life-sized poster of pro basketball star Michael Jordan is used to stimulate conversations about how African-Americans can be more than just athletes or entertainers.

Greenwood believes youngsters today are better equipped to learn in a society that is far more open than when she was a child.

"I think young children today really want to know and understand this," Greenwood said. "This is a generation that has more awareness of treating people equally.

"When I was in a segregated school growing up, African-American history was ignored," she said. "I remembered being in the fifth grade and our teacher gave absolutely no reason for skipping the chapter on Africa, even though we all wanted to know about our past."