Two outdated, yet "insidious" myths are hindering American children -- particularly African-American children -- from achieving success in school, says Dr. James P. Comer in his newest book "Waiting for a Miracle: Why Schools Can't Solve Our Problems -- and How We Can."
Dr. Comer, the Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry in Yale's Child Study Center, is the creator of the School Development Program (also known as the "Comer Process"), which promotes the collaboration of parents, educators and the community in order to improve children's social and emotional skills so they can, in turn, achieve greater school success. This concept of using teamwork to improve the educational environment has been adopted in more than 650 schools in 28 states and in Washington, D.C.
While all the schools implementing the Comer Process improved dramatically, Dr. Comer discovered that some of the schools returned to mediocrity through careless administrative, economic or political decisions, while other schools remained unrecognized, despite their achievements. This prompted him to look beyond what goes on in school for the source of school problems.
"There is nothing wrong with the kids," Dr. Comer says. "The problem is in the culture ... and not in black culture as some claim, but in a societal belief system based on two insidious but very powerful myths." These myths, he notes, are: "Able individuals will rise by their own efforts," and "Whites have been successful and blacks have not."
While individual effort is indeed important, concedes Dr. Comer, he points out that there are even more important determinants of success, such as the developmental experience of the individual, the quality of the "opportunity structure" (that is, health, education and political and economic access) and just plain luck.
"The notion of the individual as the sole source of success creates a winner-loser mentality, and it creates a need to scapegoat the so-called losers," says Dr. Comer, associate dean at the School of Medicine. "This fuels racism and ethnic tensions.
"Throughout American history, every new group was scapegoated until its members could gain the political, economic and social power to stop it," he adds. "Because African Americans were a caste group, they only began achieving powers in these areas in the 1960s. Around then, the nature of the economy changed, requiring the very thing an excluded group was least able to provide -- a very widespread, high level of community, family and school functioning."
In addition, says Dr. Comer, these two myths have caused the nation to underinvest in the development of all its children, resulting in harmful consequences for all Americans. "The myths prevent us from making the opportunity structure adjustments the nation will need to survive and thrive in the 21st century," he notes.
A member of the Yale faculty since 1968, Dr. Comer has written more than 150 magazine articles and over 300 nationally syndicated articles on children's health and development. His books include "Beyond Black and White," "School Power: Implications of an Intervention Project," "Maggie's American Dream: the Life and Times of a Black Family" and "Rallying the Whole Village."
In "Maggie's American Dream," the Yale professor describes his own childhood growing up in a church-going family in the steel mill town of East Chicago, Indiana. He tells how his working-class parents gave himself and his four siblings the experiences that later enabled them to garner 13 college degrees among them. It was while striving to understand why he and his siblings were able to succeed when many of his peers had not that Dr. Comer first became inspired to create the School Development Program.
Dr. Comer recommends putting aside the outdated myths that are hindering children and, instead, promoting concepts that can help them succeed. "Through a focus on children and the creation of schools that support their development," he says, "we can create a win-win culture -- competitive but caring -- that can lead to the good society we have tried to become over the years."