The Thomas Family Values
by
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After a few days in her new class Tameka noticed the kids in this class were a little different. There were older kids and some of the biggest troublemakers in the school. The kids seemed behind in all levels of their class work. “I will be a star in this class” Tameka thought. The class always seemed to have kids talking out or moving around, someone was always in trouble. This class was very different from any she had been in. When it was time to read out loud nearly all the students had trouble reading. Tameka had problems too but not like these kids. There was one girl in class that really struggled when reading. Her name was Alicia. Whenever Alicia read it took a long time for her to finish one sentence let alone a paragraph. The other kids would groan when she read and called her Bubba Gump. And when the students were broken into small reading groups nobody wanted Alicia in their group. Tameka knew what it felt like to be put down and snubbed from being in Mr. Harley’s class, she sympathized with Alicia but what could she do? Tameka “thought why don’t they help her instead of teasing her and putting her down”? Finally one day she had had enough and asked the teacher, Ms. Shirley if she could sit by and help Alicia. With her teachers permission she moved into the empty seat next to Alicia and said “hi Alicia”, my name is Tameka but my friends call me Meka, you can call me Meka”. Alicia who was always looking down looked at Tameka, saw the sincerity in Meka’s face and immediately had a big smile on her face.
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About the Book
The Thomas Family Values is a collection of short stories that follows siblings Andre and Tameka Thomas through a typical school year. Through the characters the readers are given insight into school and social issues facing our urban children today. School issues include bullying, teacher/ student dynamics (teacher praise and snubbing). Social issues include: affect of parent incarceration, having compassion for others and affect previous events has on today’s kids. Stories in the book are adaptations of real life situations and give honest depictions of school life for inner city students. The book tries to balance between the images the media and others have placed on African Americans students. And the realities of the challenges social and school issues place on our kids.
About the Author
Phillip (Phil) Anderson was born and raised in Indianapolis, IN. He attended Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) in the 1970’s and would later work in IPS. The idea for the Thomas Family Values came out his working for the school system. As a teacher’s assistant in a special education class Mr. Anderson challenged students to write stories and then read them aloud in a small group setting. This helped increase the student’s confidence in reading and writing. Conversely the students encouraged Mr. Anderson to write stories so they could have something interesting to read. The stories became a big hit with the students. The students felt like he was telling their story. With the help of Mr. Anderson the class went from being a Special Education class to just being a special class. He started a program where he ate lunch with a student or group of students just to talk about their issues. He had lunch dates set out for 2 months. Professionally, Mr. Anderson graduated from National Louis University, in Tampa, FL. He was a past President of The Manual Black Alumni Association (MBAA) a group that raised money for scholarships for Manual High school seniors. He was also a past president of The Civil Cervice Conservation Club in Indianapolis, a historically black camping and conservation club with a 75 acre campground in Brown County Indiana.