WEBVTT kind: captions lang: en 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.000 00:00:07.000 --> 00:02:15.000 -Washington because he understands that tryin' to do these jobs at the mayoral level is almost impossible. But for the people there, who live there, who can organize a coalition within that town, I think that's, that's where the battle lies. Along the lines of the brother here. To remark about people having their own internal problems, do you deal with the fact that it's not as though this movement unraveled all by itself but that it had a little help from its friends? You mentioned Fred Hampton, and we know about, you know, the Black Panthers and the way in which they were destabilized. Is that dealt with way-that's my first remark, are there clips that are dealing with the way in which this, this government at the highest levels sought to derail this movement for change? We do. We deal with it in that story, and it's other places as well, but that's the primary story to show government outta control. But we also try to take it into a dimension that these things don't happen without internal issues being surfaced. Arthur Eve, in the Attica story that you-some of you don't even know, we realize that this clip is not right because if you don't know what Attica was, you don't quite know what's going on. But the reality is Arthur Eve says in interview that he believes what the prison authorities are telling him about it, what's going on there, and he finds out that, that people's, you know, throats have been cut by the prisoners. In fact, all the people who died in Attica died because of the, of the assault made by the, the police and the state troopers. But what is...the point I'm trying to make is that we learned that that kinda stuff works best when you do it to yourself. And the people who believed things about each other, reacting to the, the really insidious and criminal actions of government in an attempt to split people completely was real. We actually have an interview with an informant who was recruited and became chief of security for the Black Panthers in Chicago, and he does talk about that. 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:54.000 The, the other, the other part of that is that, as these critiques of American society by not just Blacks but Whites as well become increasingly radical and more, as it were, to the root, another kind of, you know, as opposed to competitive international model, one of cooperation starts to surface. And do you deal with the, the fact that, or the, the-well, that various leaders did not tie democracy to capitalism but tied it to some other kinds of economic systems? I think that's a job that has to be left to the people who teach it. Surely, the issue of economic justice is, is throughout the series. Couple more and then, yes, here, and then you. 00:02:55.000 --> 00:08:12.000 If my students were here right now, essentially a White student body from Maine, how would you explain to them your statement just now of the two levels on which Black people have to converse in the context of your call for us to break past us/them separations? Well [sighs]- -it would depend on, on, on how old your students were, whatever, but assuming they...I mean, I'm a, a New Englander by, by choice and I, I love New England, and I would perhaps try to talk to them about what the, the Maine seacoast looks like at dawn and what it's like to eat a Maine lobster and [stutters] de, de, define pieces within their experience that might not be shared by others, and how they introduce that. And I don't know how you translate that to the hostile sense of people who then hate maniacs, and whether or not in doing that, that kind of discussion, whether you expose yourself. For people who have never been thought of as being the, the, the target of the kind of hostility that's been practiced upon African Americans, it has to almost be a taught response, although it has basic anchors in most human experience when you're exposed and, and you can't, and you can't trust the people who are around you. I would think I might do it around trust and to see if you could play with some of the basic teaching techniques to, to get people to understand trust and then show them when it's not there, why you can't, why you can't talk. That's not a terrific answer, but it's what [unintelligible] That was a great answer. Yeah. Angela Davis spoke recently at Simmons College and essentially she said what you said, that it's time now, we have to form some coalitions, we really have to get back out onto the streets and show that the great mass of people in this country are not in favor of what's happening in cities, are not on-in favor of what's happening all over the whole country. With that in mind, I'd like to talk about what Gwen said, and I think it's Will? And some other people. Ten years ago when I came to Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, a group of students and teachers asked me to get together and help them form a peace group, an antinuclear group, and we started to form students and teachers opposed to nuclear war. I think that we got out into the streets, we sent, there were millions of people in Central Park with us a few years ago. Things have changed. We had several bus loads come from Cambridge Rindge and Latin to go down in April to march for choice. I think that we can do it again now. And some teachers have been talking to me, our tensions have increased too. We're not as wonderful a place as a lot of people seem to think we are. And some teachers came to me the other day and said, Let's start a group of students and teachers against racism, and let's begin to listen to what the kids' lived experience is in our high school and in their communities. And I'm willing to start that, I'm willing to help to start it if Gwen and Will and other people who are in this room can talk about how to do it so that it really becomes a powerful and empowering organization, so. I commend you. And there are two people in this room, Ruth Batson, who I introduced you to earlier briefly, and Jack Mendelsohn, who sits back there, both of these people are, I think, individuals...Ruth is a, a member of the national advisory board for Eyes and, and my very good best friend and, and Jack is an almost equally good friend and- -but I, I identify them for you, to you for a very specific reason. Ruth was a housewife in Roxbury who went into the Boston system because her kids were getting a poor education. And METCO and the, and the entire co, confrontation of the Boston system resulted from women like Ruth and, and parents like Ruth saying, This is bad. Jack Mendelsohn, who those, some of you know, a Unitarian minister who risked everything by standing in the pulpit of Arlington Street Church and accepting illegally the draft cards of resisters for the first time, and started a movement that has resulted, did result in, in enormous victory in stopping a bad war. These, these actions that people take, as you take within your environment, are the, are the critical, the, the, the events that create critical mass. And I don't know how we get people to do it, but one of the ways surely is by sharing and bringing groups together. And by being honest. Jack and I were just in Indianapolis last week showing people this and previewing the series there and we spoke to a group of a couple hundred students, sixty Black, forty White, integrated school. And it was fascinating because as we talked about some of the things we've talked about today, they began to talk to each other. Much less inhibited than perhaps this group is now, but won't be a little later, right? Talk, they began to talk to each other. I stepped back and Jack stepped to the side of the room and it was marvelous. They were talking honestly. They weren't performing. They were trying to come to grips with, with themselves first of all, but that group resolved becomes a powerful unit toward change somewhere else. So, I agree. One, one more and then we'll stop, all right. 00:08:13.000 --> 00:11:21.000 I'm wondering if you could address a little bit in the making of those sections of Eyes on the Prize, the difficulty in not overwhelming the audience with a sense of powerlessness against the negativity, against the racism, against leaders being shot and killed, against the struggle of, of fighting against a government where often people end up in prison, or-I think one of the things that I find in teaching the curriculum is trying to, especially in middle school to maintain a balance of empowerment and moving forward. Some of the suggestions people have talked about are good ones, but I wonder in making the film how you tread that balance because you don't want people to walk away feeling overwhelmed and that the, the battle is, in, in many ways it isn't won, and you need to keep fighting, and the need to, to energize people to continue that fight. You, you raise a, a very important point and it's clearly one that, that dominated much of our thinking about the early series and the, the concept for it. It would be tempting, given the drama of the footage and, and some of the terrible things that happened, to follow that, that route. And we-sometimes people did in times past. We made a conscious decision to try to look at it the way it was lived. Nobody lived through it successfully who looked only at the negative. There were moments like the euphoria of self-discovery that people have forgotten, that the news media rarely saw. There were the moments of people like Ali, for whom Black people took an enormous boost, that White Americans don't understand to this day yet. There were the offsetting stories of Gary that people didn't know about, but people came back from there buzzing about We're gonna do it, we're gonna elect it, and the number of elected official goes from twenty-five hundred to five thousand roughly. There are, throughout the series, stories. It doesn't mean that if you watch it, that you won't get down 'cause there are places that you surely will. We, we have tried to maintain within it that balance so that you will be able to find and show people the reality of certain moments, pro and con, negative and positive, and get students to understand that's really the way life is. It, it rarely is a total high, and you have to overcome the lows. I'm gonna step down now. And I just wanna thank you all for first coming, for your support, and give you a warning that you've stepped into something now that you may not understand completely. This project has the capacity as it first grabbed me and, and has dominated my life for better than, than thirteen or fourteen years, to do that to others. Vincent and Ruth and, and Jack and, and so many of the other people in this room who have been touched by it. You may succumb to the same malady, and it's not half bad. [[inaudible] All right. Thank you. 00:11:22.000 --> 00:18:10.000 Henry mentioned honesty and honest talk. Next stop on our agenda is to continue the conversation in smaller groups. Quick announcement, there is a special discussion group that all Tufts and other students who are present are invited to at the terrace room, eleven. Shortly. Get coffee, whatever on your way out. If you haven't yet signed up for one of the workshops, do so. Use your pink sheet here to determine where you're to head. The discussion groups will re...will convene at 11:00 a.m. The, all but the last two rooms are in this building. If you're one of the last two, if your tag is marked in black or in green and black, get help being pointed toward your next destination. See you later. They're gone. That was-[cut] [unintelligible] Is it too dark? I mean too light? Maybe another [unintelligible] on it. I'll run and get you one. OK. Can they turn off those lights? Just a second. Probably not. They may need them. Low density film, low speed. Folks, this, this forty minute session here is for all of us, OK, just to kind of respond to maybe some of Henry's comments this morning, get a chance to put out some of the themes and impressions that you have. I see it, my name is Bill Parsons, for those who don't know me, my name is Bill Parsons. I'm an education consultant and on the planning committee for this conference. And one of the projects that I work with is with designing curriculum for the Museum of African History on the back side of Beacon Hill. And I guess [pause] I guess if we-so it really is to try and get some of your response, maybe some of the thoughts put out today. The goal of this conference is to get educators to come here, to put a lotta pies in the air. I mean, to me, today is really like the guy in the circus with the plates. You know, he gets them spinning and he goes back and he keeps 'em spinning until he gets 'em all spinning. That's how I see today. A lotta pies in, in the air. We're not gonna have a lotta time to dwell on anything or to go in-depth in anything, so what I'd really like to ask you to do, especially this size group, is to make your comments crisp, questions, bounce your questions off each other, make short statements, don't elaborate a great deal. And try and do as much rebounding as we can in the next thirty-five, forty minutes, OK? I just...where I come from on this is that, unless we can do better in schools in terms of dealing with conflict between groups in our society and so forth, it's gonna dismantle everything else we're doing in our schools. And I've seen that in school after school that I work with around the country. That you can have all the great plans for restructuring, you can have all the great achievement scores, you can have all the great everything going on, you can bring in new staff, you can do all that, you can restructure whole schools, do a whole school improvement plans, but if you can't get th-if we can't do better at the group conflict, on all the different levels...I'm not, I'm talking about everything from the, the gang wars that I've seen in some of the LA schools I've worked with to the other levels of just suburban schools here in the Boston area that have said, Oh, we don't have any problems here, so why do we have to incorporate this material into the school systems? 'Cause it's just gonna reinvigorate and bring up these issues. And obviously we hear that, that logic all the time. And yet I was in, in a high school on the South Shore and I was standing there and the principal was telling me, in fact it was the head of social studies was telling me, We really don't have any problems. And, you know, I love your curriculum and all the material you're dealing with in Eyes on the Prize and all the materials that you're dealing with at the Center and so forth, but I just, there's no need for it here. As we're walking down the hallway, we listened to kids standing there by the locker using language about each other, using the word nigger and using the word kike. I mean, it was just constant as you went down this hallway. So there are all the different levels of how we try and deal with this stuff, but I think that unless we do a better job of it, unless we get it into core curriculum, not waiting for the guidance people to deal with it or waiting for, like, Manchester, Mass., where they have the incident and they respond to it and bring people in, not that kind of approach, but how do we get these kinds of issues and questions, many of which Henry was raising this morning and many of which are raised in the Eyes on the Prize series, how do we get that into core curriculum? Math-I mean, social studies and English and history in particular. How do we get those kinds of questions as ongoing, continuous, and not as a sideshow? Not for just Black History Month. Not for just...in Dallas it was, I was working down there in Dallas, they said, Oh, we cover all this. We do Tolerance Day in- -February. Somehow you do Tolerance Day and then you go back to whatever you go back to. Intolerance year. Right. So, anyway, that's the goal. The goal of this conference is to start to bring new life to these issues. And I think one of the other goals was that a lot of the new material that's coming out in Eyes, Eyes II is material that, it, it's not as easy to categorize it anymore as the good and the bad guy. It's not as easy to say, here's Bull Connor and here's King. When you start talking about desegregating, desegregation of schools and affirmative cction, those kinds of things, it gets harder for people to deal with, it gets cloudier, it gets more difficult to make distinctions, and that's gonna increase our role as teachers in the classroom. I think that's what we're trying to at least start to raise today, some of those questions around that. And then hopefully we, we go a long way from here. I'm not gonna have lots of thoughts because of the time. I'm gonna just stop and see some of your responses. Yeah, please, yeah. 00:18:11.000 --> 00:21:59.000 I think perhaps I may be more fortunate than the people working in the public school. I work in, in a private school, so I pick my curriculum and so I do Eyes on the Prize in the spring, for the semester. My difficulty is that my students are all special ed students with varying ability levels, from non-readers through high school age readers, but I feel the content is important. Is there any thought or any plans for a, a prepackaged kind of curriculum? I, I do a whole lot of making up my own worksheets and scaling down the book and rewriting the book for varying ability levels. Is there any thought or anybody working on doing that? There are multiple efforts, just in this area alone. And one of the World of Difference coalitions that we're...that took place a few years ago brought together lots of those people in different organization, some of who are sitting around here in the room today. I think that, that somehow at the end of this conference we oughta get to a...to all the folks here, get mailing lists of some of those organizations and people who are trying to deal with, with these kinds of issues. There's lots a help out there in terms of designing lessons. I think the more difficult question at this point is, what are we focusing on? There, there is none of this material in Eyes II or Eyes I that you can't show and you won't get response from kids. You can take, I'm not talkin' about sitting and dwelling for, you know, showing a whole hour clip for kids. I'm talking about taking ten and fifteen and twenty minute excerpts, some of which you'll see today, taking those excerpts into the classroom. It'll provoke a discussion. It's, it's guaranteed material to provoke discussion. The question, the hard question is, where do we go with it? You know, what are our questions and what are some of the things we focus on. Yeah. OK. One, the response that I have is I think that, in order to facilitate discussion with kids, we have to be able to sit down, watch it in a group like this, watch the whole thing, not just watch the clips here and clips there. Talk about our own responses. As somebody who has worked with both teachers and kids using Eyes on the Prize, I really think that that kind of process is essential for us to be effective teachers. And curriculum worksheets or, or formats will not replace that, just like you were saying, because it's in the process of discussing things that we learn how to facilitate discussions with kids. My...so, so one question is, is there or can there be at any of the community, you know, like, say Brookline Adult Ed place, could some of the community adult learning centers begin ongoing study groups using the Eyes on the Prize curriculum for educators so that they can have their own discussion groups? Not that we show it, watch it with the kids and then we are not even half a page ahead of them in terms of our emotional preparation. Specifically, one of the issues that I have run into in my schools, I work with the Catholic schools in the city of Boston and I work...I've used "Mississippi: Is This America" [clears throat] a lot, the fifth segment, in schools in East Boston where there are no children of color. And I have, when you run into a problem like this you really need a group of educators to go back to and, and talk about how do you deal with it. My problem is that in "Mississippi: Is This America," when I watched it with seven and eight graders out in East Boston, they have changed every single person who was White into a person of color. When I stopped the video tape, when I became aware of it, I stopped the video tape and I asked the kids, Who are these people? To them, the people who are from the North were indistinguishable from the people of the South, and they had changed the color of every single person in that segment to being Black. And that was an astounding experience for me when the kids watching a video tape are in fact incapable of seeing themselves as potential actors in this. I'm talking about White kids. They, they do not see the possibility. They see people like themselves and they say, They got to be Black. Cannot be me. And then where do I take this as an educator, to talk about it with other educators? There are literally no places for us to go to. 00:22:00.000 --> 00:23:39.000 I'd like to stay with that for a minute in terms of, you know, more questions that you have that you think are very difficult, that get raised from this series. We may not be able to talk about all the ways we deal with 'em, but at least- [unintelligible] -follow up with you was a comment about just, what are some of the more difficult questions? Can I just do here and then up? OK, yeah. I think if you're gonna deal with racism, first of all, you have to deal with your own racism. As a White, you know, straight man, I mean, that puts you in a certain minority position in this country. So I think one of the things with kids is, you know, you start there. But I think the other thing is, you can't do it without support. OK? And so, what we need to do, and I think the mention of various kinds of groups, people who are teaching what is basically an abrasive curriculum have to have support from other people who see it as valuable. I took over as an advisor of a suburban school newspaper, OK? I like journalism and I like writing, but chiefly I took it over and I was very upfront about it because I wanted to advance discussion about race...racial issues in Newton. I thought that was really important. Newspaper is a central organ. Now, I know that I'm gonna take a lotta heat from that, and I'm trying to build a coalition in the school around supporting that, and in the community. But, you know, other, other...these kinds of coalitions are not just around, you know, issues exterior to the school. If you're going to advance these kinds of issues and, and deal with, with the difficulties that they are gonna necessarily engender, you have to have other adult support. So I think we need other kinds of centers or networks where people can share precisely these kinds of problems. We may not come up with any answers about how to take the heat, but at least we can offload some of that heat so we don't feel like we're completely isolated. 'Cause that's how racism really grows is, is people who feel that it's wrong have no support. What can they do? 00:23:40.000 --> 00:25:38.000 That's, that's one pie. OK, let's just keep it up there, all right, in terms of organization, structure, support and so forth. What are some of the impressions as you watched this, this morning even? Yeah. I wasn't gonna address the impression, but I think that's kinda the, the easy part of all of this. We can see on, on the screen and, and look at the chronology of events and, and some of the effects particularly on the dismantling of legalized segregation. But I, I would like to address the first woman's concern because I think it's extremely valid, and that is that there is probably a, a subliminal movement afoot within the world of education in terms of suggesting that students, and particularly White students and faculty begin to go through what is being called antiracism training. And I think the danger and the problem we all will, will have is that we take the Eyes on the Prize series and introduce it to students and really aren't, aren't capable ourselves as a adults to incorporate it into what it means societal wide, what it means in general. And, and before you begin to present material like this and find yourself caught up in emotion and find yourself in a bind between, you know, in particular trying to help White kids in East Boston identify with this as, particularly as it relates to, you know, the fact, well, you know, lots of times kids will say, Well, that was twenty years ago, and they'll see the '65 through '85 series and say, Well, aren't things different still? But I think we've gotta help kids look at this systematically and in a much broader picture than just looking at pictures on the screen. And I think the way to do that is faculty, students, and teachers need to begin to get themselves educated and go through a training process and looking at antiracism curriculum. In, in essence, what this perhaps is. 00:25:39.000 --> 00:28:57.000 Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I'd like to second and third that enthusiastically. And I was gonna say, one focus, if we're, if you're soliciting foci for us as educators, is that we have to get our administration, that is our communities, to be committed to pluralism. I mean, that's where you really have to back up. When people have, you know, National Brotherhood Day or they say, Well, we have no problem out here in the suburbs 'cause we don't have any people of color- Yeah, that's a problem. -then, then we all, we already have a problem. What a superintendent of a very White, suburban school system on, once said to a group of people, it was absolutely right on, he said, If you really want to, if you really value diversity, if you really value antiracism, then in your school system you will speak it and do it and say it and evaluate it for...evaluate for it every day of the school year. And he said all of his teachers have to show every year what they have done to combat racism, what they have done to advance pluralism. And if our school systems, if everyone in the school system, administrators and teachers were evaluated for what they have done proactively to combat racism, then we would see not just Eyes on the Prize in the classroom, but that broad-based consciousness. If he's doing what he says that he believes in too, he oughta be hiring a diverse population- Oh, absolutely. That's- -so that kids see models other than- That's the- -their own faces- That's part of it. -mirrored back at them. That's a big part of it, thank you. Yeah. That's part of it. I teach in a system where that doesn't happen and it's maddening. Yeah, yeah. I think that to pick up on the support system and the whole idea of reeducating ourselves, that methodology is, is key here. That it's not just the content, but it's how do we teach controversial issues and how do we become better able to help kids. Not to teach kids what to think, but to teach kids how to think. And I don't wanna get caught up in the dogma of teaching kids this is wrong and this is what you need to think. But I want them to come up with all the inconsistencies, the questions, raising conflict in their mind because that's when true learning takes place. And I don't wanna be in the positions of, of talking at them. And so, what I'd like to see is a lot more work being done on the methodology so we don't get caught up in saying, My god, racism is awful and don't you understand this? and I feel like I'm shaking kids, and, in fact, it's more dogma. Oh, yeah. And what I would like to see is more emphasis on the methodology that train, helps train us to work with controversial issues and support groups for that so that we're instead having kids...we're complicating their thinking and having them raise issues and say, This is unacceptable. What are, what are ways to change this and what are...you know, teach me now. 00:28:58.000 --> 00:35:11.000 Gonna stay with it. Give me, just give me three questions. Where would you go with this if you showed some of the Eyes, those of you, I mean, what, what do you think is a central theme? Just, just so we can get some sampling of where you would take this whole piece of history, even if you haven't seen much of the Eyes. What, what, what's at stake and what helps kids make meaning outta this? Because one of...I mean, one of my agendas is how we refrain from always imposing adult agendas on kids in the classroom. I mean, how we stimulate inquiry but how we don't impose adult agendas is a difficult balance. I mean, that's the tightrope we walk all the time. Suppose the adult agenda is a good agenda. I really disagree with this methodology, you know. I mean, it's, it's very American this kind of focus on technique. Racism is not something, I think you said, of automatically or idealistically come to as a sense that it's wrong. It's historically wrong. And the thing is, and I really disagree with that, Bill, I think that adults, one of the reasons we get screwed up is not that we don't come on right, it's that we don't come on. We don't say to them, Look, this is wrong. And these are the reasons why this is wrong. I think you- [unintelligible] -I think, I think there's a hell of a lotta critical thinking that went on in Nazi Germany in the twenties and thirties, and people like Heidegger, I can't...there's no one in this room to tell me that Heidegger was not a critical thinker. And that son of a bitch ended up, you know, supporting the ovens. And it's that kinda critical thinking that can get us in trouble. So we gotta have some kinda balance here. It's not contentless. OK, yeah. I think there's a way to address what both these people are saying. I think they both have legitimate viewpoints. And addressing what you said earlier about let's not have a day of tolerance or show Eyes, study Eyes on the Prize for, you know, a month and then you forget about it. I teach American history, one of the things I teach, and I think one of the ways to answer your question is place it in a context of perhaps the ideals of what America's about versus what has happened down through the history. I mean, one of the things I like to do is talk about what is said in the Declaration of Independence, a very straightforward, some ways, but simple document that I think most people say the words are very valuable, but then what is the reality that's happened in the two hundred and whatever, twelve, thirteen years since then? And talk about that racism is one example of...and a very big example in our country of injustice. And if you begin to have students talk about ideals versus injustice through the history of the country, not just, not only the civil rights movement and what the response was to that, but talking about the problems of African Americans back in the 19th century, what happened after the Civil War. The Civil War made these big, great gains and then all of a sudden the door was slammed. You can start as early as- Talk about- -the native people. -right, talk about Native Americans versus White Americans, talk about women versus males. If you begin to do that, I think you can begin to get at what the ideals of what America are and still talk about getting people to think about these issues and not come down with a heavy hand that this is right, but say, If this is what we really believe, and I think you can start, say, getting agreement about these ideals and then move forward, I think you can hopefully achieve both the...what you would hopefully like to guide people towards, get them thinking and put this whole focus, which is very important, in a broader context. I know I'm a little abusive just pushing [unintelligible] yeah, please, yeah. I too want just to respond to some of the issues that have been raised in my class. I teach freshman writing at Emmanuel College and this is the focus for the freshman writing course, is the civil rights movement, and we use the book and we use the video and I use Coming of Age in Mississippi. And one of the things that was very interesting that comes up in class that I'm kind of unsure about how to handle is my Black students talk about racism within the Black community. You know, different shades of color and what their experience is even on campus amongst themselves. And frankly, I, I find that kind of, I...I wasn't really sure how to approach that whole thing. You know, it, it got raised itself. And so that was one thing that came out of it. The other thing was, in terms of how I incorporate it that I think has worked well is always making connections. The gentleman up there said kind of seeing it in the broad perspective. I mean, from an English point of view, I can teach writing, I can teach how you show things perspective. We can, you know, students are writing editorials and news articles on these, on the incidents that they watch, you know, in the video and such. But also trying to get them to think about how this affects them today. And, and kind of the sad thing that I've been able to do is to make many, many, many Xeroxes of articles on the front page having to do with racial issues today and trying to get them to see that, yes, it's history and that it's important to understand the history in order to understand these issues. What, what I think Henry Hampton was addressing today that you, I tell my students, you know, Look at the paper every day. There's always something that has to do with this issue. That it's not something that we just study, we say, Gee, isn't it nice? or whatever, and, you know, it's important to know that, but that you can try to get them to connect and, and be able to answer questions that are raised today. Yeah, please. I'm coming from a little different perspective. My education is with adults in the labor union movement. And I think it's im-I mean, there's a lot of, when people did see or, quote, know about Eyes on the Prize, one, there was a lotta feeling that that's history, that happened in the South. And I think that one of the things that I got from Henry Hampton's speech today, that this whole second part is about rectification. That we've only made, like, zip, this much progress and that now we're in the period of either rectifying or going all the way back to zero. [inaudible] And I feel that one of the problems that I have to deal with in working with adults and working with trade union people is this whole notion of affirmative action. I'm sorry, what? With affirmative action. And it's a very divisive issue, and we need to understand the history and, and what the principle of, of rectifying past wrongs is and, and how you deal with that. And I think...that I hope, that I hope this thing use, deals with affirmative action. I know that some of the handouts do. 00:35:12.000 --> 00:37:33.000 One of the clips we're showing this afternoon- Oh. -in the workshop is around the issue of affirmative action. That's...one of the clips we were gonna show this morning, but all conferences never stay to schedules, OK, so you can't show it. And that was around the, it was one brief piece in there, the sample was the War on Poverty, the Poverty Campaign. Do you remember some of your impressions when that began? When Abernathy started the walk towards Washington? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do you remember some of the responses of people in the country today? No. Anybody? Yeah. I remember the media response. Any response. What, what was...? Was that, that, the criticism was it was very disorganized. The stuff about being in the mud. Those are the impressions I remember twenty years later that these people musta been crazy to be in the mud. [laughs] Any other responses? Yeah. It's not a response to that. I guess it's a response to my anticipation of how easy or hard it's gonna be for me to, to work with students around the second part of the series because I'm not the only one with a few grey hairs in this auditorium, and a lot of us, when we looked at the Eyes on the prow, Prize I, whether we looked at it reflecting about what we were like as teenagers or whether we were a little bit farther along and we have some participatory stuff, we came with it with some sense of empowerment in our own lives. And I think what is scary to me, looking forward to dealing with students very soon around the second series, is that we need some sense of empowerment ourself. Not just empowerment as teachers, but empowerment as human beings because we did what, what Henry referred to this morning, we looked at that period of history as one which was, there was some joy in it and there was some euphoria, and I think we're scared. If we're White or if we're Black or if we're forty or if we're twenty, we know how scary these headlines are and we have not moved toward the empowerment, empowering of ourselves as people, and we need some coalitions and we need some coming together and we need some more confrontation. I mean, I did racism training. Doesn't mean I'm not a racist 'cause I live in this society. Mm-hmm. [laughs] But you know there were a lotta stuff, you know, fifteen and twenty years ago that we had to, to, to help us through it. And I think right now we need to be empowered or we're not gonna do anything with this next series except raise issues that we don't help kids to become empowered about. I don't know what to do about it, but that's how I feel and it's hard. 00:37:34.000 --> 00:39:58.000 I think helping kids make distinctions as to what they see in this series is even more critical. Making distinctions of language and vocabulary, making distinctions. You know, one of the notions we forget is that revolution is not a neat thing. Revolution is something that's messy. It's all over the board. It has voices for the whole spectrum. So even in the sample with Carmichael and King, you know, standing there, I mean, that, that's a glimpse of some, and we're gonna be talking more about this with some of the cli, clips this afternoon. The range of voices that are in a movement like that. And I think one of the other questions that, that, you know, that I've seen make sense to kids in the classroom in dealing with this kind of history is that you have this cause, whatever it is, against the war in Vietnam or discrimination, whatever, you have this cause and yet the cause is often determined by other events that are going on in society. I mean, why, you know, what happened just prior to the March on Washington that makes the March on Washington so successful. I mean, one of the most amazing analogies I have is my work the Museum of African History. When we were writing the curriculum of, of the African Meeting House in Boston. Which if you haven't taken your kids there, you oughta take 'em there. They've got terrific guides now and people who really bring that history alive. And it's, it takes place between 1806 and the Civil War and so forth, and it's where all this debate went on about desegregating schools, ending slavery and so forth. And yet here was this whole movement by William Nell to try and desegregate the schools in Boston, and finally it's a lot of the sentiment against the, against the fugitive slave law that finally pushes the state legislature over. I mean, it's one of the criteria that pushes them over to accept desegregating the schools in, in 1855. In other words, that this other thing comes along in society, this other event that really wasn't a part of the movement and yet it...and so helping kids see that, that events aren't all isolated, it isn't all packaged up. I mean, look at the stuff we get. They package the Montgomery boycott up all the time. Does this, Rosa Parks sits down and you get King and you get this. Right. [laughs] And you gotta read Parting the Waters and other books to really see what was the agony of what people went through. I'm not even talking about the foot soldiers of the Rosa Parks. I'm talking about people below Rosa Parks who just made decisions daily to [unintelligible]-[cut][wild audio] -and that kind of thing, I think, yeah...Al's all the way from California so gotta [unintelligible]- 00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:07.000 I have a concern in particularly high school or-[picture resumes] -the secondary level where it is more departmentalized in that if a youngster does not happen to take American history or does not have a very good literature teacher, then this stuff will never be taught, and so we actually get to very few youngsters. And so somehow we've got to find ways to integrate it into all curriculum and find ways to continually go at it from that point of view. And I would suggest to you that, that many of our teachers who don't have to deal with sensitive issues just stay away from it, and a kid will go into this class and just forget all about things, things are normal, and hear the same kinds of remarks. And then the next day he'll go into his social studies class, if he has a good teacher, they'll talk about the issues. And then that's through, and you keep going. But somehow we have to get to all of the disciplines within a school. Whether the teacher teaches or not, at least get the whole staff involved in this. The math teacher may not use the lessons, but at least the math teacher needs to be involved with the issues. Yeah. You, can I just get behind you? She's got her hand up, and then I'll come back. 00:41:08.000 --> 00:42:24.000 One of the problems that I had when I was dealing with Eyes on the Prize is I was teaching it as a substitute, and so I said, Well, have everyone look at it and then tell me how do you feel after it. And, and that was something that they wanted to talk about, but it was also very frightening for them to talk about because, and this is a good follow-up to the previous remarks, none of the other classes were really dealing, were really dealing with this. So, in a way, the fact that I was teaching that and now I am teaching Eyes on the Prize in my own class is I'm seen as sort of someone teaching something crazy. Oh, she teaches issues like homosexuality and prejudice and racism, and things, and things like that. And then the majority of the other classes in the school aren't dealing with it and that's very, very difficult because I do go...I do teach at a school which prides itself on its commitment to diversity, which is the new buzzword. And I think, I think everyone is really saying that if we're gonna be committed to diversity, we have to show it. And I think the one thing that we can all do, if it's on a teeny-weeny level, is get up at our faculty meetings and say, Watch Eyes on the Prize. Yeah, please. 00:42:25.000 --> 00:43:31.000 Gonna say, I, I teach American history and obviously we go into this a great deal. I also teach European diplomacy and they don't see why we talk about racism and the European centr...at least most history books is the centrality of Europe in history. Little louder, please. And what happens is they don't wanna discuss colonialism or any of those things looking at European conflict. [laughs] And they don't see how they connect. They don't wanna see it. It's Europe, it's Britain, it's France, it's Germany, the colonies don't matter, nothing else matters, and the racism doesn't matter. And they just don't understand it until you, I push it on them. They say, Well, you're, you're using a different agenda. And that's 'cause...mostly because the textbooks that we work from don't have it. Yeah. [unintelligible] And we have to go outside the sources to get the information that we need to use. And they are very, very dismissive of anything that we bring in from the outside as sort of being, you know... The students are or... Oh, very, very dismissive. OK, I'm just hearing you- Well, some of the faculty are as well. -you're referring to. Yeah, most, mostly students, some of the faculty, you know, where is this radical stuff coming from? Wait, the kids are dismissive of this? Yeah. Hmm. 00:43:32.000 --> 00:48:20.000 Let me just go back here one more time then come forward. Yeah. Yeah, I, I hate to repeat myself, but that point exactly is why it's important that, that administrators [clears throat] if you work in an independent school, boards of trustees, parents, and in particular, again, White students begin to get some of this...begin to at least be exposed to the concept of antiracism curriculum, or the fact that the curriculum that we have all in this room traditionally been exposed to has been a Western, Eurocentric curriculum and the reason they are co, uncomfortable or everything that you try to add to your class is seen as radical is because there, there's a clear understanding and, let's not fool ourselves, that there's, there's an invested, there's an invested interest here and we need to make administrators first understand that that's dangerous and that the, the, the possible ramifications of us continuing with this traditional curriculum as we look into the twenty-first century, you really don't wanna think about that. And, and I think one analogy that I heard recently was that, when you look at the Stuart murders, perhaps we, which we're crisis-oriented before we react as a nation, when there are more Stuart murders and perhaps then people in the suburbs and those administrators and those board of trustee members would then begin to look at this, because the oppressed will only turn on themselves but for so long. And, and that's really the focus. You cannot take Eyes on the Prize and, and have it as an isolated part of your curriculum. It's got to be in there, it's got to be valued, it's got to be seen as antiracist education. And there's a whole lot more to do before you can do that effectively, which is educate your faculties, your trustees. Otherwise, you're gonna have all the problems everybody's talking about. You're gonna continue to have it till that happens. There's also the reality of the question of content, and that's what every teacher has to face. And, I mean, if the statistics are true, the total amount of information is now doubling every five years in the world. Look at the demand that puts on us. What do you select? What do you choose? And so you're always fac-so I think we've gotta, got a few minutes left here, but I think we've gotta keep pushing ourselves to think about what's the rationale for choosing this piece of history as opposed to lots of other history. And it's not a comparison of pain. It's not saying that the agony of what people went through in this history is any different than the agony of what people went through with another piece of history. It's not a comparison of pain, but it is a comparison of why we hold up this as a watershed event. And we have to be able to have, hate to sa, say the word "soundbite," but we've gotta have that thirty seconds with a superintendent or whatever where we can explain why this history is important to teach and the lessons for it. Because the amount of information that we're being asked to teach constantly is increasing and we simply select. And that puts it on the spectrum. What you get is you can get kind of a Chicago curriculum which is a little bit about everything and nothing in depth, because you gotta cover it all. That's the danger. Or at the other end you get the particular, you know, the other end of the spectrum you get the particular approach which is we only do the case study of something in depth, but then you lose sort of the panorama. So it's a real balancing act around questions of content and methodology. And I think it forces us more and more to go back to thinking, why are we choosing this piece of history, and why are we choosing some of the material from Eyes on the Prize to go after what we think is important. Yeah, can I get Ron? Yeah. Yeah, Ron Bailey. Black Studies Department at Northeastern University. I think that underlying...there's something underlying a lotta the comments. And, and we need to remind ourselves of the limitations of our own education. Thank you. OK, because what's, fundamentally what's being said in terms of our being unprepared for dealing with Eyes and the kids or how we integrate the curriculum and so on is the fact that we have not been trained in a way to view this phenomena that we're dealing with as a holistic phenomena, OK? And so, it becomes frustrating to try to take Eyes as the isolated incident and explain to somebody with a soundbite why this important. One of the things that I, we shoulda Xeroxed and brought here today was a full page ad in the Chronicle of Higher Education from the National Association of American Scholars . The headline: "Is the Curriculum Biased?" And we'll try to Xerox that before the day is over and get it out because if you want, if you want a capsule statement about the warfare going on around the nature of the curriculum, OK, the kinds of young people we wanna train, what it means to talk about culture, diversity and racism and equity and so on, you got it right there from some of the leading quote scholars around, around the country. I think that, for me, the Black experience is absolutely central to what this country's been about. Right. 00:48:21.000 --> 00:51:03.000 You know? And I think that that's something we don't understand. You know, the civil rights movement is, is so central because it goes back to the very nature of the slave trade. It takes up what happened with colonialism. It takes up what sharecropping was all about. It takes up the Civil War, you know, right on through. You know, it's related to the migrations of Black people from the North. I mean, there's, there's, there's a central thread running right through this history that was ignored in the declarations. In other words, it's, it's, it's central. It's like the invisible institution, so to speak. And I think that, as educators, if we can come to critique our own educations and challenge ourselves and try to be a little more theoretical. I mean, this is a very pragmatic country. We don't think about theory, we think about gettin' it done. And in the process of that we lose the opportunity to weave, you know, this cloth, this whole cloth that we need to present to our students. I mean, I am not worried about what happens when students deal with this material. I mean, I've been really amazed and pleased with the way students, when you're honest, can get at this material. It's not a problem, I mean, it's not a problem to show this to Black and White students and have 'em go at it, you know, and let them go at it because they tend to come away, you know, stronger as people. So I, I mean, but, but as teachers, as, as, as adults we don't have it together. You know, we don't. We aren't strong enough to stand up in a room like that and say, Hey, let's go at it. You know, this is, you know, we'll go at it, talk about it, and come out stronger. So I, I think that what I'm saying is, one, we need to try to understand that what we're talking about goes much deeper than Eyes, it goes much deeper than the civil rights movement. It really goes to the essence of what this country has been about. You know, I think, I mean, Vincent's book, There is a River in the- Right. -you know, we can talk about some of the, the, the very eloquent analogies that Vincent has used to try to get at this point, the centrality of the Black ex-and if we understand the centrality of Black experience, you know, the slave trade, the rise of New England in, industry, I mean, we could make the argument, OK. The second thing that concerns me as we talk about impressions, we do have to hammer in on method and technique. I mean, I wanna hear, for example, if teachers think it's important for us to pipe over the satellite or the cable network a collective discussion and reactions to Eyes when it's shown in January. I mean, I wanna know if, if we can put it over the PIN...some of you don't know this, this net they use through the cable system. At some point we gotta hammer away at the question of technique because if teachers are saying, We're unprepared to deal with it, then it's not gonna have the impact that it could have. 00:51:04.000 --> 00:52:04.000 I cut you off little bit ago, yeah. I think one of the problems we run into is we feel compelled to cover so much ground in our curriculums that, how are we gonna fit this all in. And I think we have to say, screw it, this is important to see and no matter how long it takes. And I think Eyes I, for example, six hours, you gotta see that whole six hours to, to get the, the overall impact. And when you do, when I did in my classes, I guess I'm the eternal optimist, I came out of it with a feeling of things can be done. Not without a lotta pain, not without a lotta agony and hard work, but problems can be solved. We created these problems, we can solve them. I asked my kids in my current events class, What can we do about what's going on in, in, in Boston and other cities? And they say nothing. We...it's gonna happen. And you show this program and I think the kids hopefully will come out of it with a message that things can happen. Yeah. 00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:54.000 My name's Evelyn Moore. I teach at Day Junior High School in Newton. And I don't think that critical thinking begins in ninth grade or tenth grade. I think it starts way, way before that. And I'm here because I'm trying to figure out a way to integrate the issues and the human rights issues, the civil rights issues with my kids in, in the elementary level before they get to high school so that, you who teach in high school, your job becomes easier, I think, because you have an audience who knows what you're talking about. It may never get easier at the high school level. Well, I, I, I think it becomes a little bit easier- -if kids have a, a sense. Can, can we just...and then we should stop, yeah. Yeah. 00:52:55.000 --> 00:54:51.000 The problem that I have is, I teach in a independent, upper-middle class, White school with no Black teachers. We teach the Holocaust program under Facing History. We use Eyes on the Prize. How mo...how do I get the kids to have a sense of ownership, because they're not Black or they're not Jewish, to identify with these situations? I mean, I see that even here today that because somebody's Black they have more of an ownership over this series and this issue than because I happen to be White, therefore I don't really have the same kinda ties to this that they would. No, that's, that's not true. White, White people are oppressed by their own racism. I understand that, but- And the thing is, to get kids, that's why just knowing stuff isn't enough. That's why just technique at some level isn't enough. You have to understand as a White person in the history of this country how much less this country has been and is as a consequence of racism. And once White, middle class, privileged kids understand their privilege not only comes at the cost of somebody else's life, which is their own guilt, which entraps them, but understand that that, that privilege holds them down from what they can become as full human beings, boys or girls, young men or women, then you begin to empower them. Because up to that point, and that's what the whole first half of the civil rights movement is about, it's about White folk piggybacking off the struggle of Black folk. And what happens is, in '65 is Black folks say, Hey, just like Stokely said, you know, Black Power. We're gonna take care of our own house, now you go get yours 'cause when your house shakes, you know, we crumble. And what happens is the last five years White people really didn't do enough of that, and that's the fallout that we're engendering now. And so, to put that back on White kids and say, Look at, this isn't the Black struggle. You know, this is the struggle of the people that have privilege to understand that their privilege is destroying this country. And I, I think that's how you deal with it. 00:54:52.000 --> 00:55:48.000 Even given your passion which that's one of the pies that's up there, folks. It'll be up there all day. I don't wanna, I don't wanna derate the question of methodology again because it is a reality. I mean, I was in Dexter, Maine, and here wasn't a Black, Hispanic. There wasn't any diversity in Dexter, Maine, that I could see. And yet they had this huge issue, they had this huge is, issue in Dexter, Maine, of one group against the other. It was against the Brownies. You know who the Brownies are? The kids who wore glasses and who took their books home. The kids who brownnose the teachers were the kids that were getting bumped on in this community. On the other hand, I was in John Muir High School in California and the teacher teaching the course there is having a difficult time of getting Black kids to own the other pieces, when they're talking about the Hispanic movement and so forth, getting Black kids to listen. And what he kept finding is Black kids saying, Well, when you get to my part, then I'll listen. And so, and that I don't mean to be light about. That's the...one of the realities of the balancing act in, in the classroom is how do we get people to cross over. 00:55:49.000 --> 00:57:18.000 It's very hard [unintelligible] having been a kid who grew up in, in, in middle class Whitesville and, and we knew all three Black kids in town by name. They couldn't get into trouble because they were immediately recognizable. And now I'm trying, I'm still teaching up in Whitesville, but I'm teaching inner-city kids. And their first response to me when I opened this can of worms, and I mean that in a positive sense 'cause I thought it was great that I opened the can of worms up and they eventually did too is, What do you know, Kara? You live up here in middle class Whitesville. You don't know what it's like. You don't live in the city. You don't know what it's like to have somebody look at you like you're, you're a piece of dirt just because of the color of your skin. And, and the only response I had to that is, You're right, I don't know. Can you tell me about it as, as, as a White person who grew up, up there. But to get to the White kids, because I also had that segment of the population, is to make it human, is to, is to bring in speakers, introduce 'em to people, bring them to the areas where there are Whites- There's others ways to do it, too. -or where, where there are Blacks, make it human. You can talk about working class experience, you can talk about a feminist experience. Right. Yeah. I'm a working class woman. I'm not Black and I'm not Jewish and I'm not a minority, but I know what oppression is because I'm a working class woman. It's personalize it. I, I have a hard time saying you know what oppression is compared to some of the other issues that we might be looking at. Can't compare. You gotta start with your own place first. I just have a hard time with that. You just can't compare it, you'll get into a trap. Close us out. Maybe you have a hard time 'cause you're a man. 00:57:19.000 --> 01:00:54.000 [inaudible] your responsibility. What I want to do is really encourage you in, in this struggle because I think Ron is absolutely right that this piece of history information challenge is really one marvelous way of opening us up to what is it that we're teaching about anyway. What is the purpose of our teaching? What are we trying to develop in our students? And I think, and the...the woman who said it earlier, I think we ought not to let it slide by. What are trying to develop in ourselves? I, I just want to encourage you by saying that, on this last question, which is a very important one, that my wife and I taught the first series in an upper-middle class, ninety-eight percent White school in Denver. And the challenge is wonderful there because it becomes very, very clear that you can go down beneath the surface to recognize that we're not simply talking about racial issues. We are talking about racial issues, they have to be faced, but we're talking about much deeper issues. What is it that makes a person stand up to oppression in any form when she knows she might get killed for it? Those kinds of questions about the nature of the human spirit, about values, about what we live for, about what's most important to us, about the role of singing and getting us ready for anything, all kinds of issues are there that have nothing to do with civil rights, but it has to do with our humanity. And if students can, can see that what we're coming at is their humanity and not their race, then their defenses are much, much lower. At the end of that, I guess, let me say two other things. One of the reasons why we were able to do that was because the head mistress of that school had determined that that was one of the most important things that her students had to experience. And so, all of the upper school students were called together once every two weeks for a semester to deal with the films and to talk about the films and spend an hour and a half to two hours struggling with them, and then later on, if we stayed on, to, to struggle with that some more. That recognition, that signal that this was critical matter was very important of course. The second thing was that, at the end of it, and you should hear Rosemary talk about this, one of the major products that developed out of it was a group of four of them put together a, a magnificent rock presentation called "Eyes on the Prize" that, that just blew you away. It came out of their own experience. This was their experiential response to Fannie Lou Hamer, and that's the only response that they could give, and indeed I wouldn't want any other response except their response. So, I just want to encourage you that there is nothing impossible about this. It will take great work, great effort, great sacrifice, great creativity, but isn't that what teaching is about? 01:00:55.000 --> 01:02:25.000 It is very difficult the reality of Monday morning in that classroom. Giving kids the tools...I mean, I hear teachers all the time say, Kids can, kids can't write and can't read, but they can discuss. They can't even discuss. I mean, generally they can't even discuss. We've gotta give kids the tools to get discussions that don't just stay lateral, that aren't just sorta bull sessions but have some depth to 'em and some longitude, get kids to listen and build and so forth. Those are difficult tools to give kids and I think they're important. Those are a lot, those are some of the pies we wanted to throw up today. And we have to stop and go to lunch. Thank you, folks. [pause] Oh, sorry. It's not in this building, but [inaudible] people out there to direct you over. We're just going to eat lunch and then we're gonna come back here for the meeting with the producers. So enjoy your lunch.[cut][end of recording: 01:02:25:00]