By Erika Cosby

Photography by Erinn Cosby

“Take it easy Dad”, “Take it easy Erika”. That’s the usual sign-off between us—a longstanding inside joke that harks back to my sophomore year in high school. At the time I was well into my second year of Spanish and I must admit I’d been slacking off. During holiday break, Dad was channel surfing for a good old black and white movie for us to watch, when he paused on a Spanish-speaking show. My head began to spin upon hearing the rapid-fire, seemingly indecipherable dialogue. This was the test. Dad asked me: “Quick, what did he say?” I proclaimed in a guilt-ridden exasperation, “I didn’t catch that part, it’s too advanced.” Dad began to laugh and gently informed me that the man said “take it easy”—in English. So utterly focused on every nuance of the repartee, I hadn’t even noticed when the characters switched from speaking Spanish to English. That is just one of the many endearing and sentimental anecdotes from a man who has always inspired my desire to listen, watch and learn.

In the 70’s, when I was a child, Dad was one of the first television personalities to use the medium to educate children through entertainment--a refreshing change from the traditional pedantic format. Just like many people of my generation across the country, I have fond childhood memories of watching Fat Albert on Saturday mornings with my sisters and brother. Now a new generation of children can enjoy the gentle teachings from Little Bill cartoons. Dad always has a special way to turn the fun visual medium of cartoon animation into an educational experience. It’s as if he has an innate sense of how young people think and see the world. It’s no surprise that children far and wide love him.

And Dad has always had a way with words, whether they are his yen for observant and compelling storytelling or his prescient and powerful words of wisdom. Both of my parents have always advocated the importance of education as a vital tool/catalyst to self-empowerment and success. They have been leaders in the campaign to financially enhance the endowments of various African-American institutions and have implemented several programs for promising students.

I too have been a most fortunate beneficiary of my parents’ continued support to pursue a solid education. One thing I have learned from them throughout the years is that the learning experience is a lifelong experience and that school is one specific valuable tool to guide you throughout life. An education can help you focus and introduces new and varied ways of thinking about the world at large. I have cursed the dreaded math classes in high school wondering how a trapezoid is going to help me balance a checkbook. But recently, when my 5 year old niece informs me that she learned what a trapezoid was in school, I realized at that moment how invaluable it was that I could reciprocate that information with her with the confidence inherent in my prior knowledge of said dreaded trapezoid (although I’m still in awe that she’s learning high school geometry as a pre-Kindergartener…) The same is true for my profession as an artist. Who knew I’d be using fractions and multiplication tables on a regular basis to install paintings on the walls? Who knew, as an artist/painter that information gleaned from my chemistry and biology classes would aid my alchemist approaches to mixing various materials? Without the support and encouragement of my parents, I could have easily lost interest in my least favorite subjects. Dad would say, “It’s important for you to be a sponge and absorb everything, because you never know when you’ll need to use it again.”

Achieving a good education in this country has its obstacles and institutions around the country are still revising and amending teaching objectives to accommodate a plethora of comprehension and learning techniques pertinent to each student. This country is plagued with an epidemic of illiteracy and below average teaching and learning skills. The results are inextricably linked to low self-esteem and subsequent behavioral problems and issues that have an effect on our society at large. Dad is steadfast in his stance to make people aware of this dangerous dilemma of degradation. He addresses the urgency of this plight in his latest book COME ON PEOPLE, co-authored by Dr. Alvin Poussaint. Dad regularly organizes “Call-outs”, based on a town hall model of bringing the community together, to address issues in a public platform.

If my brother Ennis were alive today, he would have embraced these same issues and values as the teacher he aspired to be. He was winding up his graduate degree at Teacher’s Collage at Columbia University when he was senselessly murdered 11 years ago at age 27.

Though he was taken from us too son, he lived long enough to discover his passion for teaching, a triumph for him after a lifetime struggle with dyslexia. Ennis eventually discovered, through/from proper instruction that he was not stupid or incapable of learning, but simply put, he learned/comprehended differently. In an excerpt from a paper he wrote titled:” TEACHING FROM THE HEART”, he states: “How will my experience influence change in the school system? I am soon to be a teacher who can influence change by my experiences as a victim of the system. I believe that if more teachers are aware of the signs of dyslexia and learning disabilities in the class, then fewer students like me will slip through the cracks of the system. I also feel that special education needs to be a combination of one-on-one and group teaching. I believe in fairness within the system. I just want all students to have an equal opportunity. I have a lifetime to devote to making the school system more balanced in any way I can.”

At Hello Friend, the Ennis William Cosby Foundation, founded by my father in 1997 to honor Ennis’s dream (Ennis often greeted people with the exclamation “hello friend!”), the goal is to avoid the limitations of the word “disabilities”. We prefer to describe the myriad ways that people learn and comprehend as “differences”. The focus of the Foundation is to provide a place for teachers to access resources and information regarding pre-emptive specialized training to teach children with learning differences. In the year 2000 we formed an education alliance with Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education. Graduates from the program, titled “Cosby Scholars”, receive specialized training to help them detect and teach all types of learning differences, to children from kindergarten through second grade in New York City public schools. The Hello Friend Foundation hopes to expand our successful tutoring program online. Our goal is to recreate the same opportunities in an accredited online tutorial program based on our Cosby Scholars program at Fordham University.

As Dad says: ”It’s important to for teachers to be able to train, to be equipped to understand that children learn in different ways. Teachers ought to be able to help the child recognize how she/he learns. Once that happens the child will then develop a love for learning.”

“The website will give clues and enlightening information and will foster significant connections.” In this high-technical era we hope to reach more teachers on a national level. The benefits of good teaching and a prosperous and comprehensive learning experience should not be relegated to an elitist and privileged few. Every child deserves the opportunity to learn and every teacher should aspire to do whatever it takes to reach every child. Ennis was a student at a time when dyslexia wasn’t widely known, nor was it easy to detect. For years Ennis struggled in school. As a result he had low self-esteem. Finally in college he discovered that there was a diagnosis for his struggle—that he wasn’t stupid, he simply had a different way of interpreting information. That was the confidence boosting epiphany that changed the course of his life. He sought out a tutor program and excelled in school with the dream of teaching children like himself. Carolyn Olivier is the Education Director of The Hello Friend Ennis William Cosby Foundation. She also knew Ennis and tutored him for his dyslexia. “ No one understands the importance of early, effective teaching better than Bill and Camille Cosby. When children are taught well, right from the very beginning, they begin to become effective contributors to society of tomorrow. Ennis was going somewhere, and he was going to take along with him anyone who was willing to listen, learn, work hard and join him in the struggle to be an effective student. He inspired and cared deeply about those around him.”

Needless to say Ennis was a terrific teacher—an informal tradition handed down by our own parents. Ennis always saw the potential in his students, because he knew the struggles first hand and reaped the success of his tenacity and dedication to overcome the obstacles of dyslexia.

A recent article in the New York Times revealed the propensity for many dyslexics to develop acute compensatory skills that lead to success in business and entrepreneurial endeavors. The article goes on to name several leaders in the business world whom turned their struggles into successes. People like Virgin Atlantic Airways Richard Branson and Kinkos creator, Paul Orfalea (an honoree at our last fundraiser) found success at a time long before learning differences were a blip on the (education) radar. Many children were relegated to remedial and special study groups in lower track systems. As a result they were stultified, stagnated, discouraged and frustrated during their attempts to read, and in some instances eventually gave up on school altogether.

The purpose of our Foundation, my brother’s dream and my father’s lifelong aspiration, is to intervene and help children and nurture their individual approaches to learning. Teaching is an important vocation and a great teacher can have a lasting, profound and sometimes life-changing affect on their students.

Dad points out: “I don’t know of another profession where people start out wanting to save the world without bloodshed, or destroying another country—or enslaving people. Teachers start out wanting to save the world. How many professions can a five-year-old child make an adult feel that they have succeeded or failed? It is okay for teachers to question their abilities as long as they are always willing to improve.”

There is a moment from a videotaped interview with one of the Fordham University Cosby Scholars, when a young teacher reflects on her teaching skills before the program: “ I’ve been teaching for many years, and I’m embarrassed when I think of the children for whom I didn’t have the skills to take to the next level in terms of their reading who had pain. And I have pain—I want to go back and find them. It’s too late for that, but now, when I have a student with learning differences, I will step up to the plate. And it’s enough for them now, I have what they need.”

I am a new teacher myself and the information I’ve gleaned from numerous testimonials from the teachers that I have met throughout these past 11 years, have served as an invaluable sounding-board and resource. Just as my mother and father saw the unique potential in each of us, I’ve learned to see each student as an individual with a special way of navigating and interpreting the world. We teachers have as much to learn as the students; it’s an ongoing venture. As Dad says: “You have to keep going over it, you need that understanding.” Take it easy.

 

 

© 2008 Avery Ennis LLC

Erinn, Camille, and Erika Cosby photo by Howard Bingham