ALMANAC/COMPASS December 9, 1997 1c

Area Kids Flip forPenn Gymnastics

John Tilgman hit the springboard,gracefully somersaulted through the airand landed face first in the mat. As hepeeled himself off the mat, he turned tomembers of the Penn women’s gymnas-tics team for some pointers. After listen-ing he tried again. This time he nailed thelanding and was congratulated with a highfive. Tilgman, proud of his achievement,walked over to senior Carin Kaplan andthe floor mat to try his new-found knowl-edge in a new arena. “I like doing thefloors the best. It’s fun,” he said.

Tilgman was one of about 25 area kidsbenefiting from the wis-dom of the gymnasticsteam. The free clinic atHutchinson Gym,offered twice a semes-ter, attempts to intro-duce the children togymnastics. The chil-dren at the Nov. 15 pro-gram ranged in agefrom four to 14.

“So many [of thekids] have natural abili-ty and haven’t had thechance to use it,” saidjunior ShannonStafford.

But teaching themcomplex tricks is diffi-cult because the time isso limited. “It takes ushours of practice to learna new move,” Kaplan said. But “we suggest new things they can try and wespot them.”

The kids learned to walk the balancebeam, straddle the horse, and do cart-wheels. But the majority of kids listed themini-trampoline as their favorite task ofthe day. They loved that the mini-trampo-line was made into a game. They wouldrun, jump on the trampoline and land onthe other side. If they stuck the landing,

they received a point. Whoever had themost points when it was time to changestations was the winner. Four-year-oldLouie Dickson said that jumping on themini-tramp “was like being a PowerRanger.”

The clinic was also a fun experiencefor the gymnasts who laughed andjoked with the kids as they flippedthrough the air.And even though theyoften failed to perfectly execute a moveand landed on the ground, they wouldalways stand up with a smile and run totry something else.

“They want to do everything at once,”said Tom Kovic, the head coach of thegymnastics team, comparing the experi-ence to being in a candy store.

The result? Stafford referred to it as “abig flipping mess.”

But the clinic also “gives us a new per-spective on things,” Stafford said. “It isusually us working out. This lets usloosen up and share our talent with the kids.”

It was also achance for the kids toshow the gymnasts a thing or two. Clif-ford Reed, 14, who recently won firstplace in a city tumbling championship,amazed all with his cartwheels and back-flip combinations. “He’s really talented,”Kovic said.

The clinic did not just concentrate ongymnastics. The kids were rewarded witha Penn Gymnastics Ivy League ChampionT-shirt and then they headed to TrainingHouse, where they were treated to a lunchof hoagies, chips and Coke. Over lunch

the kids talked about theclinic and Kianna Singleton,8, proudly declared that shehad “learned how to do ahandstand straight up.”

H o w e v e r, the kids didn’tjust learn how to do hand-stands; they also learned alittle about math and Eng-lish. The clinic ended with atutorial session in whicheach gymnast took one ortwo kids and helped themwith their addition or, for theolder kids, multiplication.

The gymnasts workedhard to make sure that thekids weren’t bored. Kaplanhelped Reed with hisspelling by first finding outwhat his favorite sport was,and once she found out that

it was football she had him spell wordspertaining to it. “It’s really about forminga mentor relationship,” Kaplan said.

The day ended with praise all around.Agrandmother who had six grandchildrenparticipating said that the “teachersdeserve a big round of applause.” AndKovic echoed this sentiment. “I am soproud of my team volunteering their timeand energy for this program working withkids. They deserve all the credit.”

By Meghan Leary Features

Neighborhood children try the balance beam under the watchful eyes ofPenn’s women’s gymnastics team.

Vo l u n t e e r sPENN

2c ALMANAC/COMPASS December 9, 1997

What do homeless mothers, overweightkids and people with dental cavities have todo with Penn? They all receive health careservices from the University. Several pro-grams in the School of Nursing, the Schoolof Dental Medicine and the University ofPennsylvania Health System (UPHS) reachout to adjacent communities to look afterthe health and well-being of neighbors.H e r e ’s a synopsis.

If you live in Southwest Philadelphia,you can sign up for workshops on cardio-vascular health for women or oncondom education, or you can sendkids to a wellness programs for over-weight elementary school students.These activities are programs of theHealth Annex at Francis J. MyersRecreation Center, 58th andKingsessing Avenue, where theSchool of Nursing operates a prima-ry health care practice.

At the Health Annex, We s tPhiladelphians receive their carefrom nurse practitioners who workin collaboration with physicians,social workers, nutritionists andother health providers.

Arthurine Foy and her two chil-dren, ages 11 and 9, all receive pri-mary health care services at the HealthAnnex. She said it all in her patient satis-faction survey: “Its nice to know that in thisday and time, people still care about thefamilies that live in the community youserve. May God keep on blessing you all.”

Key to the success of the Health A n n e xare the community residents who serve onits advisory board and help determine theservices the Health Annex provides.

Some patients are covered by insurance,and some pay what they can on their own.“Nobody is ever turned away,” says Lois K.Evans, DNSc, FAAN, professor and direc-tor of academic nursing practices.

The nursing approach focuses on healthpromotion and wellness, on families, oncommunity-based health care.

The School of Nursing’s eight academic

nursing practices, including Myers, provideprimary health care, nurse midwifery, well-child care, preteen and adolescent care andfamily planning, among other services, toclients of all ages. “We’re the only nursingschool in the country that has eight acade-mic nursing practices,” Evans says.

“These practices are the labs and class-rooms in which our undergraduate andgraduate nursing students learn,” saysEvans. “Granted, they learn in hospitals,but they also learn here.”

The practices offer clients severala d v a n t a g e s .

One need is cultural sensitivity to thereligious, social and family values of ac o m m u n i t y, and the nurses provide healthcare that responds to the community’sneeds, Evans says. For instance, at theHealth Annex, the community advisoryboard recognized the need for a cardiovas-cular fitness program specifically forAfrican-American women. The nursesresponded with Sweatin' with the Sisters,an exercise program that also teaches theparticipants ways to reduce their risk forcardiovascular disease.

The practices also meet communityneeds by making health care more accessi-ble. “These practices are convenientlylocated in the neighborhood. And they pro-

vide students aplace to learn whicho ffers best-practicemodels of nursing,”Evans says.

Each practice is open five days a week,with nurses on call evenings and weekends.

Another such program helps chronicallyill older adults stay at home and out of nurs-ing homes. At Ralston House, 3615 ChestnutStreet, the School of Nursing runs the Col-laborative Assessment and Rehabilitation for

Elders (CARE), a day-hospital for frailolder adults with multiple health problems.

Clients visit CARE several times aweek, undergoing physical, occupationaland speech therapy and other rehab ser-vices, all coordinated by advanced-prac-tice nurses. CARE handled 13,000 patientvisits last year.

Meanwhile, the office of communityrelations at the School of Dental Medi-cine is also making inroads into outreachby requiring students to perform dentalwork for people in the community. T h e1997 graduating class has donated morethan 4,300 hours of service.

Between July 1996 and July 1997,dental students screened more than 3,800people for oral health and provided edu-

cation about dental health for another 2,300people, according to Herman Segal, D.D.S.,clinical assistant professor and associatedean for community relations.

The Health System is also reaching outto the community. UPHS defines the imme-diate community-service area as nine zipcodes in west and southwest Philadelphiawith 355,000 residents. “My job is toincrease access and improve the quality ofcare — improve the relationship betweenus and our neighbors from the health-sys-tem perspective,” says Wesley McGavock,executive director, Office of NetworkDevelopment, Philadelphia Division.

McGavock says UPHS is positioningPresbyterian Medical Center as a communi-ty hospital, “a hospital at which people canfeel comfortable, a welcoming place that’s

Health Care Breaches Ivy WallsBy Susan Perloff

At the Health Annex, Amy Levi, director of nursing’s Community Midwifery practice, and

nursing student Cecilia Gallagher discuss with aclient the importance of breast self-examination.

Features

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ALMANAC/COMPASS December 9, 1997 3c

Noam Chomsky views the world with noi l l u s i o n s .

To accept reports by popular media andgovernment is to believe the United Statespresently enjoys an “economic miracle,”said the renowned linguist and political ana-lyst at a recent talk on campus. Chomskydoes not believe in the miracle; he calls it a“technical term” that translates, “Rich peopleare doing quite nicely.”

For the majority of the American popula-tion, however, Chomsky said conditionsgenerally have stagnated or worsened thepast two decades, while the top few per-centiles have gained astronomically.

Attacking the sacred cows of the A m e r i-can economic system at his presentation,“ To d a y ’s Threats and To m o r r o w ’s Hopes,”Chomsky questioned the present success ofthe free market system, painting a picture ofgrowing corporate wealth at the expense ofthe lower classes.

The Penn alum ranted November 18 to apacked house of over 250 in Meyerson Hall.His presentation served as the Public Lectureof Appreciation honoring the late Zellig Har-ris, author of the recent posthumously pub-lished text, “The Transformation of Capital-ist Society,” and one of the owners of Houseof Our Own Books, near the Penn campus.

Harris, who was a Penn professor,believed the world’s economic systemsneeded serious reform to operate eff i c i e n t l ywhile creating a more equitable distributionof wealth. Chomsky studied under Harrisand shares many of his beliefs.

C h o m s k y ’s provocative talk sprang fromtopic to topic, beginning by examining a

local issue that would have been near anddear to his mentor’s heart — the threat toindependent bookstores by large chains.Chomsky described the bookstore battle aspart of “a powerful and highly self-con-scious attack against democracy ... attempt-ing to narrow and restrict the spectrum ofthought and opinion.”

Drawing examples from movies to maga-zine articles, Chomsky asserted that the“establishment” brainwashes the masses, sothey won’t question the system, or theirplace in it. He also noted that multi-nationalfirms are dominating the information mar-ket, heading toward a future where a handfulof giant corporations will control newspa-pers, magazines, books, television, and theI n t e r n e t .

Domination of public information by cor-porations could not be possible without thecooperation of academic institutions and thegovernment, which create mainstream intel-lectual opinion and find it necessary to con-trol the public mind, he said.

Marketing (or “manipulation and control”methods as he refers to them) constitutesover one-sixth of the United States' grossnational product, according to Chomsky.And this figure does not include the enter-tainment, news or opinion media (the “man-ufacturing of consent” marketing segment).

C h o m s k y, noting that mainstream democ-ratic principles date back hundreds of years,said it was the corporatization of America atthe turn of the century that led to the repres-sion of fundamental democratic principles.Wage labor may be a staple of our economy,he said, but the concept of selling a worker’s

time to a boss is aform of slavery.“Those who work inthe mills should own andrun them.”

H o w e v e r, Chomsky is not a one-sidedanalyst; he sympathizes with the wealthy, aswell, pointing to a Businessweek headlinethat he said sums up the problems of therich: “The problem now: What to do withall that cash?”

Despite the problems of overflowing cor-porate profits in America, we must “toleratethe highest poverty level in the industrialworld ... ranking next to Cuba in theUNICEF Human Development Report,which measures the typical maladies of thirdworld countries,” Chomsky said.

The basis for the aforementioned “eco-nomic miracle” are these social ills that per-vade America, Chomsky said. Inflation isl o w, he added, because “American workersare intimidated by the radical shift in eco-nomic power between management andworkers since the early 1980s.”

It is a mistake, however, to label Chom-sky a pessimist. He happily described themacro-historical progress of freedom in theworld over the past 200 years, beginningwith 17th-century England, where the radi-cal publishers and workers rose up for al a rger piece of the pie. The resistant public,or “ignorant meddlesome outsiders,” asChomsky deemed them, “are constantlyfighting back, and over the centuries havewon plenty of victories and the realm offreedom and justice has expanded, and willcontinue to.”

Chomsky Dissects "Economic Miracle"By Henri Tetrault

Features

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responsive to their needs.” The pastoral care department continues

to forge relationships with community cler-gy and churches. It’s designing a parishnursing program, for instance, that will putregistered nurses in churches to identifyand manage the care of people with healthcare needs. “By providing convenient ser-vices for parishioners,” says McGavock,

“we’re tying those referrals to our hospitalsand our services.”

Homeless women and children in We s tPhiladelphia would benefit from new tran-sitional and emergency housing that UPHSis investigating. Existing services in thecommunity provide temporary housing for74 women and children in two large dormi-tory rooms with two bathrooms — not

nearly enough to serve the homeless popu-lation. UPHS’s planned project, which it isresearching in collaboration with HolyRedeemer Health System, Episcopal Com-munity Services and the City of Philadel-phia, could furnish space for 100 additionalpeople. “It’s something for which wereceive no tangible, direct benefit,” saysMcGavock.

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P resident Bill Clinton’s efforts to cre a t ea national testing program to standard i z eachievement across the nation led us to askTom Corcoran, senior re s e a rch investiga -tor for the Center for Policy Research inEducation at the Graduate School of Edu -cation, for his opinion. Nathaniel Glasserasked the questions.

Q . How will Clinton’s plan to institutenational standardized testing in Englishand mathematics affect the current curricu-la of public schools in states that comply?A . I think it will have very little effect.

Q . And for what reason?A . Most states already test reading andmathematics, and states’curricula arealready aligned with those tests. I don’tthink this will have much impact.

Q . Would the testing affect how and whatteachers teach? A . Well, I suppose it’s possible that somepeople would have to change. In stateswhere there’s not now public reporting ofstate assessment or where the state assess-ment standards are not as high as thenational test — in those cases, teachersmight have to change their lessons in orderto make sure kids can meet the standardt h a t ’s on the federal test.

But I think that’s going to be much lessof a change than either the advocates or thecritics of the testing program suggest.Because I think, in general, everybodyteaches reading K-4, and there’s alreadyreading tests used widely around the coun-try; and many of the states already haveeighth-grade mathematics assessment. SoI just don’t see this as having nearly asmuch impact as either the advocates or thecritics worry about.

Q . Will poor minority children suffer as aresult of these tests?A . No more than they suffer as a result ofany other test.

If you’re asking are their scores aregoing to be lower than majority children,the answer to that is predictably, probably,yes. But that happens all the time; suchscores are reported all the time in themedia.

You would hope that poor results wouldbuild a case for the public to realize thatwe need equal funding for schools regard-less of who attends them. It doesn’t seemto have that effect, though.

Q . The testing results will be made pub-lic. You don’t feelthat national test-ing would be anymore worthwhilethan a state’s test?A . The only thingthat this adds tothe existing testingstructure is thepossibility of com-paring resultsacross states; that’sall it adds. T h a tpossiblity alreadyexists with the useof NAEP ( t h eNational A s s e s s-ment of Education-al Progress). T h a t ’s a fairly high-standardtesting program — also funded by the fed-eral government — which is given to sam-ples of children in participating states;actually most states participate, or a larg enumber of them do. It’s given in mathe-matics, science, and language arts, but it’snot given every year; it’s given every cou-ple of years.

Those results allow comparisons to bedrawn across states already. The onlything that this adds is the possibility ofcomparisons across states on an annualbasis. And of course, it only providescomparisons for those states who choose toparticipate. Other than that, in my judge-ment, it adds very little of value.

I would much rather see the federalgovernment help states improve theirassessment programs than to launch anoth-er one.

The trouble with [the proposed newtesting] is, it is also only in one subject ineach of two grades.

One of the things that could have hap-pened if you did reading and math both in

the fourth gradeand in the eighthgrade, states couldhave adopted thefederal test as theirstate assessment.In other words,they could haveintegrated it intowhat they arealready doing.That could havethe effect ofupgrading stateassessment pro-grams where theywere not strong,and, of course, it

would have also reduced the redundancy,the duplication of testing.

But since they are not choosing to dothat, all they are doing is adding additionaltests into a structure in which there isalready multiple tests given. I think it cre-ates more confusion than it brings anykind of clarity or any kind of real help tothe system.

To Test or Not to Test (Here Are Our Questions)

Tom Corcoran