A New Superintendent--A Historic Occasion

I read a statement somewhere recently that I agree with and bears repeating at the beginning of this essay: " It is okay to look back...but don't stare!" Now with just three weeks to go before Worcester appoints its first African American school superintendent, let me take you back to the spring of 1970 when it seemed as if the country was on the verge of civil revolution. At the time, I was a team leader in the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) Teacher Corps African Studies Curriculum Development Project. I had spent the previous July at Temple University in North Philadelphia in an intensive racial sensitivity training program in preparation for working with a group of 32 people, 28 of whom would be returned Peace Corps Volunteers from many African countries. By May 1970, my team consisted of 3 black women teacher interns who were teaching at Chandler Street and Lamartine Street Schools. It would have helped if there had been some other black teachers in either of those schools, but that was not the case. Indeed, there were very few black teachers in the entire system. However, we were surviving and even adding lessons to the developing curriculum guide.....THEN ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE!!
By "hell" I mean "Kent State"happened. If you are too young to remember what "Kent State" means, then "Google it." It was just an awful time in the United States. President Nixon sent the troops into Cambodia and the youth of America erupted! The National Teacher Corps in Worcester, Ma. under the auspices of the University of Massachusetts was no exception. A meeting was called and it was decided that some action needed to be taken by the group to show its displeasure against the Nixon Administration and since the school department was seen as an arm of the government, the action would be taken there. As strange as that thinking may seem today in 2009, that is what it was in 1970, and campuses all over the nation were being taken over by students and in some cases wrecked! What should be done? One option discussed was to picket the school department's central office. This was not a joke, and I thought I was about to faint! I think if the material had been there to make and print the signs, the work would have begun right then and there. Cooler heads prevailed. Someone suggested using a day to teach about PEACE. I breathed a sigh of relief (somewhat)and suggested using a day that they plan carefully. I suggested making them reading lessons with carefully contrived questions eliciting main ideas, specific details, vocabulary, and inference. I thought that it was very important that the lessons be extra good because they would be under the magnifying glass of controversy so to speak. Don't leave any openings for criticism if possible. I planned for and did a video of one of my intern's lessons. Later, I invited the elementary supervisor to view the video. Her comment?---"A born teacher." (I am not sure how sincere this comment was however.)...(Back to the dialogue)...
We now had the unenviable task of going to the Central Administration Building (It wasn't the Durkin Administration Building then) and telling the school administration what would happen the next day. Would they approve? Would they throw the whole program out? Is this bringing national politics into the lives of children? (That is what I really thought.) We had 7 team leaders. However, in this case, looking back, everybody scattered, and it was left to the Assistant Director of the project, Joe Blackman(Stanford University) and me to face a rather cool administration alone. I was the ONLY homegrown product in that first floor conference room with all that brass that morning. My other colleagues were nowhere in sight! You could cut the tension with a knife! Joe and I sat on one side, and a host of other people on the other. The one person I remember most vividly was our assistant superintendent, Mr. James McKenna.
Joe broke the ice by saying that the Teacher Corps people were responsible people. There was talk about "using young people" for "political ends". In the end, I can remember Mr. McKenna turning to me and saying, "Let me turn to ONE OF OUR OWN and ask him what he thinks." I looked right at him and said, "I WOULD LET THEM TEACH." That was the end of the meeting.
Mr. McKenna approached me out in the hall after the meeting and said, "Mr. Coleman, we do get involved,don't we?" .....When I READ those words, I regret that you cannot HEAR them, because print does not convey the meaning that was conveyed to me at the time. There are times in life when you have to grin and bear it. This was one of those times.
The two years of that African Studies Project were difficult but also exciting years for me in education. That summer UMass wanted to send me to their school in Uganda in Africa so that I could gain the African experience, but my wife was having a baby (my daughter Karen) and I was not about to leave her.) Marcia Perkins, one of the other team leaders went in my place. She brought me back two beautifully carved ebony wooden African heads which I treasure to this day. Instead of going to Africa that summer, I took a group of children from the Chandler Street neighborhood and with the cooperation of the Appalachian Mountain Club of Paxton, Ma. gave them a camping experience at their camp in the woods. Polaroid Corporation of Cambridge, Ma. also gave us 50 of their instant cameras and later helped us in their lab to develop the photos in such a way that we were able to produce a book for the children entitled, "Our Neighborhood and Camp Bananas".
The School of Education at UMass Amherst published and sold the African Studies Curriculum which was developed in Worcester by these returned Peace Corps Volunteers. My intern, Sharon Carter married Roosevelt Thomas in Passaic, New Jersey at the end of the Teacher Corps program. My wife and I drove down to the wedding and were the only white people at the wedding. Despite all the sensitivity training, it still was an odd feeling to be in the minority. Sharon and her husband went on to fine careers at the University of Miami. The other two interns went on to teaching careers in Mississippi and Texas. Our director, Cynthia Shepard married and became Cynthia Shepard Perry. She became ambassador to Sierra Leone during the first George Bush Administration and then head of the World Bank in Africa during the second George Bush Administration. A few years ago I received an invitation to a dinner at the State House in Boston which was given in the Hall of Flags. It was given in Cynthia's honor by UMass for distinguished graduates of that institution.
Of course it should never have taken until the year 2009 to appoint the first African American school superintendent in the city of Worcester. Back in 1970, my thoughts were directed toward destroying kids stereotypes about Africa being the land of Tarzan and jungle while only one sixth of it was anything like that! Our group was also dealing with racism on a daily basis which was par for the course for my team members but brand new for me! Temple University helped a lot but not totally. I will tell you what happens to a white person in a situation like I was in and it is this: You get mad as hell when you see racism directed at any member of the group and you can't do anything about it. But time doesn't change that.
I am going to get off this kick pretty quick, but I do recommend sensitivity training for everyone although it is PAINFUL. I don't know if you can find it on Google or not. I will try after I finish, but I recall one exercise that I use to do with teachers to give them a taste of sensitivity training. It was called "BODY RITUAL AMONG THE NACIREMA". With this exercise, I describe the strange daily rituals of a culture that still exists and and then ask the audience to make judgments about that culture's strange habits. The surprise ending always shocks people into looking at their own attitudes.
I said at the beginning that it is okay to look back...but don't stare. I am afraid that I have been staring very hard! I will end here. Congratulations Mrs. Boone, I hope I get the opportunity to speak with you.