metro »
Teacher Lydia Paterni and author Jackie Urbanovic with Paterni’s Coleman A. Young Elementary School kindergarten class from last year
Legacy Of Teaching
From mother to daughter, the dedication to Detroit children continues.
Keri Guten Cohen | Story Development Editor
F
lo Paterni of West Bloomfield may
have retired from teaching violin
in the Detroit Public Schools in
2012, but that doesn’t mean she lost
touch with some of her previous students
and their parents or grandparents.
For many years, Paterni, an instru-
mental music teacher who started
teaching in Detroit in 1975, invited
students and their families for a picnic
she hosted in the summers. One grand-
parent became a traveling buddy. And a
brother and sister came to play for her at
her home when she was recovering from
cancer.
“I wanted to teach in Detroit because
I went to school in Detroit,” Paterni said.
Her family, however, moved to Livonia
in 1965, two years before the rioting in
Detroit in 1967.
“My parents never told me why,” she
said. “I wanted to go to Cooley High,
but things were happening. The year we
left, someone’s hair was set on fire. My
parents wanted to be near Jewish people,
and there was a significant amount in
Livonia.”
Still, Detroit was the only place
Paterni applied for a teaching job. In her
job, she floated from school to school.
And she had to find instruments for her
students because they were not in the
budget.
At one point, she started Suzuki group
violin classes for preschoolers whose
parents would commit to coming to
lessons. “No one had this in the Detroit
schools,” she said. “I got to know them
and became invested in the whole fam-
ily.” That’s when she started her picnics.
“I had no fear of being in Detroit,” she
said. “Most of my students were black.
I taught in schools in the previously
all-Jewish area. There was one principal
who got rid of every Jewish teacher in
his school, including me, but the school
I went to is the place that changed my
career forever because it’s where I started
the Suzuki program.
“I did feel racial tension from para-
professionals and the assistant teachers
because I was white, but not from stu-
dents or parents.
“I really know that teaching in Detroit
was what I was supposed to do; it was a
good match for me. I feel I had a positive
influence on the black children and they
on me. I talked about Jewish holidays
and did Chanukah songs, and I created a
Christmas song CD they could play with
at home.
“I was involved with the families, and
some of them are my best friends now,”
she said. “They absolutely became part
of my life, too.”
Paterni’s daughter, Lydia, 27, is keep-
ing up the family tradition. She’s a kin-
dergarten teacher at Coleman A. Young
Academy, rebuilt on the location of a
little schoolhouse called Stratford that
her mom used to attend as a child.
“When I was younger, I used to go to
Mumford Academy’s
Jewish Principal
Shari S. Cohen | JN Contributing Writer
T
he newly reconstituted Detroit Public Schools Community District
is trying to rejuvenate the troubled system with help from idealistic
young people, including some who are Jewish. Several dozen Jewish
young people are committed to public education in Detroit through the City
Year Detroit and Teach for America programs and as regular classroom teach-
ers.
In addition, at least one Detroit high school — Mumford — has a
Jewish principal, Nir Saar, 34. Mumford, which is part of the Educational
Achievement Authority (EAA), the ill-fated carve-out for failing schools, now
has only 800-900 students in a new facility completed a few years ago.
The school was split into two components as an experiment to see if stu-
dents would be more successful in a smaller setting. Some programs, such as Mumford Academy principal Nir Saar works with some students.
18 October 13 • 2016