Excelling academically is not about just book sense, said William Raspberry, Okolona native and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post.

BY SANDI P. BEASON


Daily Journal


OKOLONA - Excelling academically is not about just book sense, said William Raspberry, Okolona native and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post.


"Some of us who were lucky enough to have parents who themselves did well academically kind of absorb it with our mother's milk," he said. "Others need to be helped and shown how to do these things. They love their children as much as anybody else loves their children. They often don't know what to do for them except to dress them cute. ... There's an opportunity to give them something much more valuable, permanent and life-affecting."


During a recent visit to Okolona, Raspberry proposed the MegaSkills program to be used to train parents on building classroom character and academic training. After meeting the person who invented MegaSkills, Raspberry said the program "made sense."


"It was an effort to get to parents and teach them how to impart to their children ... greater skills that come before the academic learning. Basically, attitudes, patience, perseverance, a sense of delayed gratification, self discipline. These are the things that I think middle-class parents in part try to instill in children right from the beginning," he said. "These precede I think the actual academic skills and I think it is the absence of some of these overarching attitudinal skills that leave some of our children at a disadvantage, even when they come to school on the first day."


MegaSkills programs are being used by more than 4,000 schools in 48 states. The focus of the program is to enable teachers and parents to work more successfully on behalf of children. Okolona School Superintendent Eddie Prather said he has contacted several parents, daycare providers, school board members and community leaders who are interested in being part of a core group to receive the first training.


"It covers a lot of components," he said. "We're trying to set up training for a core group of about 20 people, probably in the summer. I hope Mr. Raspberry will be able to come down for the first training session. ... If we can convey his passion (for the program) to 15-20 people in the community, we feel like it's going to spread out in Okolona."


Raspberry said at the heart of the program is Okolona residents getting involved in the development of their children's potential.


"It's not about promoting a program, it's about lifting up a group," he said. "I don't know anybody who is opposed to the development - academic and otherwise - of children. ... It indeed may be the only thing I can think of where black, white, conservative, liberal, rich and poor can agree. 


"We're all better off if we can develop the trained intelligence of all our people."