Wednesday, June 22, 2005

District 23, a brief history

We had a sudden T-storm (fun to say aloud) in the city today, and all the skinny black girls on Flatbush Avenue and the rich old white ladies on 5th Avenue were ducking around with grocery bags on their heads - trying to save their hair-dos. In my teacher training, we've been talking a bit about reconciling cultural differences; maybe these women are already doing this, whether they know it or not.

I have now been the property of the New York Department of Education for about three days, and I'm feeling surprisingly content. My F.A. proved much more likable on the second day of class, and my education professor, who will teach me from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon for the next two weeks, is pretty much a godsend.

The man is a bottomless well of useful information. He knows everything from what to do if a kid throws a baseball at your head (as Mr. Sydney Poitier did in the clip from "Blackboard Jungle" that we watched in class today) to the entire history of the New York public school system - from its formation in the 1840's to today's new Regents requirements.

Turns out, my Professor was a first year teacher in Brooklyn once too, only he started in 1968, the year that the city gave the primarily minority Brownsville neighborhood autonomous control of its schools - the neighborhood board had the power to spend money and to hire and fire teachers as the community saw fit. This power was promptly taken away when the community tried to transfer out a few white teachers who had been very vocal in their disagreement with the new power structure.

The result was a massive standoff between the United Federation of Teachers (the union to which I now belong,) who wanted the white teachers back in the school, and the community leaders, who wanted their children to learn from teachers who supported the community's right to control its own places of learning.

After the standoff ended in a stalemate - the communities were given almost all the power, except the power of the purse and the power to hire or fire teachers, which meant the situation was almost worse than before - thousands of people marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to demonstrate at City Hall in support of community-run schools.

All this happened in District 23, and this district, where children once had to cross picket lines to get to school, and where my Professor once taught in a Freedom School, also happens to be where I'll be teaching come September.

So it is invaluable to have this man's background knowledge and his practical optimism. He knows every subway stop in the borough, and manages to make "You're not teaching English, you're teaching Children," sound totally new, and I am grateful for that.

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