VOA慢速英语2010年-Education Report - San Francisco Educa

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

More than half of young black men in the United States do not finish high school. Many grow up without fathers and in neighborhoods with gangs, drugs and violence. Sixty percent of those who drop out of school have spent time in jail by the age of thirty-five.

Joe Marshall co-founded the Omega Boys Club in San Francisco, California, twenty-three years ago. Mr. Marshall tries to give boys -- and girls -- a safe refuge and a chance at a better future.

Every week, he has two basic messages for his young students: "Stop the violence" and "Don't do drugs."

Mr. Marshall spent twenty-five years as a teacher and administrator¹ in San Francisco. He taught math in middle school and expected to see his best students go to college.

JOE MARSHALL: "I got a lot of horror stories and a lot of my former students ended up dead or in prison for selling drugs, being involved in gangs, girls ended up getting pregnant."

The Omega Boys Club serves more than four hundred young people every year. Two times a week, it offers after-school classes in math, reading, family and life skills, and college preparation.

Joe Marshall helped establish Omega Boys Club

In many ways, it serves as a kind of family. It provides teenagers with structure and support.

Joe Marshall has a doctorate² in psychology³. He sees gangs and violence as a disease that needs to be dealt with as a public health problem.

JOE MARSHALL: "That's what these young people get. They develop a street mentality⁴. The big part is dealing⁵ with the emotional residue⁶ of anger, fear and pain that they develop because they got invested in this in the first place.

"Then we tell them to follow some new rules for living that will decrease their chances of ending up dead or in prison and increase their chances dramatically of staying alive and free."

The club represents the headquarters of what he calls the "alive and free movement." But his most effective way to spread his anti-violence message is through radio.

In nineteen ninety-one, Joe Marshall started "Street Soldiers," a weekly call-in show.

JOE MARSHALL: "OK, let's talk to line two. Line two. And this is--Is this Marlena? This ain't the Marlena I know."

MARLENA: "Yes Doctor Marshall, this is Marlena!"

JOE MARSHALL: “It is my Marlena!”

Marlena was one of the graduates of the Omega Boys Club.

JOE MARSHALL: "She's at Southern University right now, going into her third year. She talked about what she had learned the hard way and how we helped her learn that by coming to Omega, by listening to 'Street Soldiers,' and she said she had learned how to love herself."

The club provides guidance and financial assistance to help students stay in school. Over ninety percent of members who were accepted into college have graduated.

Twelve other American cities have copied the program. Joe Marshall has been invited to speak in Canada, Nigeria, South Africa and Thailand.

He turned sixty-three this year.

JOE MARSHALL: "I want to build an institution. I'm not going to be here forever, so my big thing is to make sure this goes on."

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report. I’m Steve Ember.
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Reported by JoAnn Mar for VOA's American Profiles series

　

1 administrator   

n.经营管理者，行政官员

参考例句：

• The role of administrator absorbed much of Ben's energy.行政职务耗掉本很多精力。
• He has proved himself capable as administrator.他表现出管理才能。

2 doctorate   

n.(大学授予的)博士学位

参考例句：

• He hasn't enough credits to get his doctorate.他的学分不够取得博士学位。
• Where did she do her doctorate?她在哪里攻读博士？

3 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

4 mentality   

n.心理，思想，脑力

参考例句：

• He has many years'experience of the criminal mentality.他研究犯罪心理有多年经验。
• Running a business requires a very different mentality from being a salaried employee.经营企业所要求具备的心态和上班族的心态截然不同。

5 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

6 residue   

n.残余，剩余，残渣

参考例句：

• Mary scraped the residue of food from the plates before putting them under water.玛丽在把盘子放入水之前先刮去上面的食物残渣。
• Pesticide persistence beyond the critical period for control leads to residue problems.农药一旦超过控制的临界期，就会导致残留问题。