{"id":13630,"date":"2016-04-21T06:26:03","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T10:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/?p=13630"},"modified":"2016-04-21T08:06:04","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T12:06:04","slug":"what-did-hartford-schools-need-in-1969","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/2016\/04\/21\/what-did-hartford-schools-need-in-1969\/","title":{"rendered":"1969: What Did Hartford Schools Need?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hartford was in chaos by the end of the Civil Rights Movement. With racial tensions reaching a climax with the Black Panthers being hunted down by the FBI and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s recent assassination, people thought that a race war was imminent. Nevertheless, in 1969, Butch Lewis, a member of the Black Panthers, took part in interviewing a variety of Hartford residents from different racial, ethnic, social, and occupational backgrounds as a means of allowing Hartford to give voice to its own problems. While many issues were called into question, the failing Hartford school system emerged in every conversation with students, a principal, and even a superintendent of schools, from students to a principal, and even a member of the Hartford Board of Education. However, though these individuals discussed their views on the reasoning behind the failure of Hartford schools, it was their overarching advocacy for community and communication tying together their solutions for the schools. It was obvious that it would take more than any one actor or power to save the Hartford school system from collapse.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a>
Two high school girls, blonde student (left) and brunette student (right) (Source<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0We start with two high school students, one blonde and the other brunette, who are first asked what they think the \u201creal purpose\u201d of school is. The blonde high student started the response by simply stating that schools create people that will be \u201canother little\u2026wheel to make the whole machine move\u201d. Though short in words, the blonde student\u2019s recognition of the deficit of schools teaching students meaningful lessons outside of career preparation summarizes one side of the arguments in these interviews: Students are not being given a relevant education they can feel invested in, thus they are disinterested. The brunette student elaborates this point by echoing the blonde student\u2019s boredom with the education being provided to her. This student sees schools as a way of learning, but not what she wants. She is taught what the schools and society tell her to learn, leaving no room for discussion of a difference in opinion. The successful students had been \u201ctrained and they\u2019re tamed and they\u2019ll do the work\u2026\u201d But,, in order to win at the game the school apparently plays with its students, people need to play it instead of trying to find a way out of it. But instead of complying, the brunette explains to the interviewer that her most significant learning her experience has nothing to do with a \u201cgeometry or history or anything\u201d, but instead developed from a moment of defiance against a teacher\u2013Instead of following order to pick up a piece of paper, as students usually did when told to, the brunette student questioned the teacher and her ability to pick the garbage up herself, earning her a visit to the Dean of Girls. Perceived as an act of insubordination, the brunette student was suspended. The administration placed blamed on her, forcing her to apologize to the teacher she defied, instead of listening to her pleads to be humanized: \u201cI don\u2019t care about your standards, I don\u2019t care have the same values as you, just listen to me you know, just let me be a person\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a>
Medel Bair, Superintendent of Hartford Public Schools (Source<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The two high schools girl\u2019 concerns had not fallen on deaf ears: Medel Bair, the superintendent of schools in Hartford, agreed with the girls that students were losing faith in schools, but, as he elaborates in his interview, the reasons behind the loss of faith in the school system originate not from teacher incompetence, but a lack of communication from the different players that should be contributing to the Hartford children\u2019s education. Bair, having been superintendent in wealthy cities such as Lexington, Massachusetts and Carmel, California, had no experience within cities such as Hartford, where the exodus of white families to the surrounding suburbs contributed to the decrease of white students in Hartford schools and the increase of minority students, in this case black and Puerto Rican students. With this shift in population, Bair states, he \u201c<\/span>found the pressure people \u2013 the people who wanted good schools \u2013 moved out of the city. They now lived in West Hartford, they lived in Simsbury, they lived in Glastonbury, and the net result was that we don’t have people who know how to put the pressure on the superintendent of schools\u201d. Thus, Bair begins to separate and distribute the blame the two high school girls placed on the school system. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0It is not just the schools that needed to change, the community and its people must have wanted the schools to improve and place enough pressure on Hartford schools to create change. This pressure, he continues, must come from the leaders of the community, eventually reaching Bair himself and when the community becomes unsatisfied with the superintendent, he will be fired. It is as this point he \u201cought pin a medal on and say I’ve done a good job\u201d, saying this with an underlying tone of awareness that he is an obstacle that parents must face in order to improve the schools. Echoing the two high school girls, Bair explains that students are losing faith not in education, but the type of irrelevant schooling the Hartford school system is providing them, also hinting that this is due to the agency and independence Hartford students have developed in response to single parent households and the challenges that came with it. However, it was not just the students with \u201ca little ego problem\u201d causing the lack of faith, but also the lack of faith teachers have in their own students\u2019 ability to learn: \u201cNeither one of the pair have faith in the other\u201d. Finally, Bair shares the the final key problem and solution to the Hartford school system, providing what occurred at the Barbour school as an example. All members of this school, parents, teachers, and students alike, were disinterested in the school, making it \u201ckind of a dead school\u201d. What turned the situation around was that the Barbour school \u201cbecame heavily involved with community people and the community moved into the school so that in essence they became one.\u201d When the Barbour school began to engage in the affairs and issues of the community, and vice versa, a lackluster school evolved into the golden standard of schools Hartford needed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a>
Isabel Blake, Resident of Hartford (Source<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bair explained that the families who cared about changing schools all moved to suburbia, leaving behind the people who did not care, let alone fight, for the education of Hartford students. Isabel Blake, a Hartford-born black parent parent of ten, stood as a counter-example to what Bair believed. She was raised by her mother, who Mrs. Blake says \u201cnever learned to read or write, but the things that she knew, she knew them well\u201d. As her mother had been taught, a deep appreciation for obtaining an education was ingrained into Mrs. Blake\u2014\u201dThere was no other way to live in our house\u201d. Mrs. Blake also mentions that, during her days in public school, she had a teacher that taught all her students the same thing, that \u201crespect gets respect\u201d, echoing one of Bair\u2019s observation \u00a0to the problems Hartford schools have. Mrs. Blake, again, serves as a counter-example to Bair\u2019s observations, raising her children with the same lesson of respect she was raised taught as a child. Continuing on from reminiscing about her childhood, she expresses her concerns on the racial inequalities that surface within the Hartford school system, though first taking the chance to say that though she hates white people and does not care whether white teachers hate her or her children, \u201cAll I want from teachers is education. \u00a0When they can’t do that, they’re no good.\u201d She recognizes the failure of the Hartford school system, one that needs as many effective teachers as possible. If white teachers needed to be tolerated because they are the ones actually teaching the children, then in Mrs. Blake\u2019s mind, sacrifices needed to be made for the betterment of oneself. Noting that racial inequalities are not restricted to the black\/white dichotomy, she expresses her concern for Puerto Rican children as well as black children needing to get represented in schools in the form of language and ethnic accommodations. Basically, she would like to have more attention given to the underrepresented minorities that make up the city of Hartford, again beginning to echo Bair\u2019s opinions. Though it should be noted that the difference between Bair\u2019s and Mrs. Blake\u2019s opinion on minority student representation is that while Bair simply acknowledges that these students, especially the Puerto Rican children, will face hardships during their students careers, Mrs. Blake advocates for the language accommodation of Puerto Rican students. Therefore, while Mrs. Blake\u2019s opinion of the white population is negative, she is willing to make changes to the school system in the form of integration and representation if it means Hartford students, including her own children, are provided with a rich, thorough, engaging, and sustainable schooling.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a>
John Barnes, Principal of Vine Street school (Source<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While Bair incorrectly assumed parents that stayed in Hartford had no interest in their children\u2019s education and schooling, his observation of the success of the Barbour school began to touch upon what the two high schools girls and Mrs. Blake were advocating for: a school system in which the community and school are not separate entities that reside in two differing spaces, but bodies of influence that need to work hand-in-hand in order to provide Hartford a relevant, effective education. John Barnes, a principal in a Hartford school, immediately recognized this separation issue. Reflecting the sentiments of the high school girls, Greg, one of the students attending Barnes\u2019 school, felt school simply \u201cplace to come to during the school year. And despite all our efforts, and I guess I have to admit our efforts were to make him conform, he\u2019s resisted and has been successful in resisting.\u201d It is not just the older students that recognize the school system\u2019s declining efficacy and relevance, but also the younger students such as Greg. Barnes openingly admits he feels there must be something that could be done in order to compensate for the Greg\u2019s troubled home and create a suitable environment in which he \u201ccould function . . . reasonably well.\u201d Barnes, having come from a suburban white school, recognizes that there are certain \u201ctraditions\u201d schools follow, traditions that monitor the the way the students go to the bathroom to how the teachers teach their students. It is the latter which Barnes sees as critically troubling: \u201cit\u2019s woven into a very very complex pattern I\u2019ve found, that attitudes of teachers, some of which are not overt, they\u2019re not necessarily, you know, racist or whatever else. \u00a0They\u2019re just people who have been trained to teach in a particular way, and may or may not have seen that this particular way is not terribly effective with this particular child or the children in this school.\u201d Yet again, fault is placed to another portion of the school system, though in this case the fault is placed on the intricately woven structures of tradition within the school system, the ones contributing to the resistance to drastic change. Included in these traditions are the separation of school and community, keeping both bodies distinct and with incompatible purposes and goals. Thus, in order to improve Hartford schools, as the high school students, Bair, Mrs. Blake, and Barnes have elaborated on, again, is the integration of school and community into connected bodies. Nevertheless, Barnes, like the principal of Barbour school, turns theory into practice by using what Bair referred to as \u201cpressure\u201d. With the help of Horace Bushnell Church, Barnes put pressure on the Board of Education, eventually convincing the Board to provide positions for seven classroom aides. Additionally, the Clay Hill Mothers, a group described as \u201cmilitant\u201d, also decided to take it upon themselves to the provide cookies and crackers to the students of Vine Street schools as snack in order to supplement the school\u2019s budget, which could only provide the students with milk. Barnes explains that the reason behind this group\u2019s willingness to donate to the school is due to the school finally acquiring aides, a demand they had been discussing with the school previously. The acquisition of aides symbolized the school\u2019s effort to begin changing and unweaving the traditions holding it back from changing, a message that the community had been heard and so the community will hear back. Barnes knew that, though these were just the beginning of transformation for the school, he had set in motion the chance to push the school to even greater educational limits.<\/p>\n

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Hartford was in chaos by the end of the Civil Rights Movement. With racial tensions reaching a climax with the Black Panthers being hunted down by the FBI and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s recent assassination, people thought that a race war was imminent. Nevertheless, in 1969, Butch Lewis, a member of the Black Panthers, … Continue reading 1969: What Did Hartford Schools Need?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1576,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,139],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1576"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13630"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13639,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13630\/revisions\/13639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}