EDUCATION FOR SURVIVAL, A SYMPOSIUM MORE ANTI-COMMUNIST EDUCATION IN JUNIOR-SENIOR (By Hall Bartlett, Long Island University, November 1961) New York State's Education Department, for example, in the early 1950's, made provision for this second means in its optional 2-year American history course (students not electing this option are required to take the 1-year American history course). In April 1961 the New York State Legislature amended the State education law as follows, The course of study beyond the first 8 years of full-time public day schools may provide a program for a course in communism and its methods and its destructive It should be noted, further, that such instruction, in both instances How can we add a separate course on anti-Communist education? matics, foreign languages, science, economics, more time for How can we find space in the on-going, heavily loaded courses in history, geography, civics, government, problems of democracy, 1 Detailed suggestions to teachers for introducing anti-Communist education into the American history course are outlined in "Teaching American History," Bureau of Secondary Curriculum Development, New York State Education Department, Albany, N.Y., 1955, pp. 248-256. Ways and means to diffuse rapidly the programs and materials found useful in these schools should be facilitated. For these are the kinds of programs and materials most apt to find ready acceptance in other school systems. In the launching of an anti-Communist education program, it is of highest importance that it have the active and informed support of: 1. The community power groups (newspaper editors, business and labor groups, PTA, patriotic organizations, religious bodies, etc.). 2. The board of education or school committee. 3. The local and county school superintendent. 4. The school building principals. 5. Local curriculum coordinators and departmental heads. A status teacher-one who has the community's confidence and the respect of his professional colleagues is the ideal person to lead in shaping the program for local use. With his colleagues' direct participation, he can lay out a program that the teachers may consider as one of their own, rather than a mandated one. This group approach is important in offsetting the complaint that the program is for a master teacher; I'm not that able. Development of such a plan and its successful launching at the local level, however, is not likely to provide a permanent program of antiCommunist education. It is essential that the local school administration, backed by the school system's overall administration, year in and year out, assure continued use and constant improvement of the program. Even marked success of a program of anti-Communist education for a period of 2 or 3 successive years will not assure its continuance. Encouraging and facilitating change This writer has had some direct experience in seeking to introduce new materials into the school program. The air-age education project sponsored in 1942 by the Civil Aeronautics Administration sought during the war years to make young Americans more air-age conscious. It was designed as a general education effort, as distinct from one that sought to offer technical training in aeronautics. The program was relatively short lived. Here and there a few air-age education courses appeared; here and there was some infiltration of the materials developed for use in bigh school social studies, biology, and English and other subject-matter areas. On a nationwide scale, however, the air-age education project's materials did not achieve wide use, despite their circulation by one of the major publishing houses. It is merely this writer's opinion that the project failed for at least two reasons: (1) Lack of systematic followup of schools using the materials, and diffusion of practices proven in these schools, to other schools; (2) presentation of air-age approaches perhaps too specialized to secure a firm place in such curriculums as they infiltrated. Direct experience with the citizenship education project from 1950 until 1959 gave this writer deeper and broader insights into curriculum. penetration. This project gathered proven practices used by high school and college students in civic participation. It screened these practices and disseminated them among school systems and colleges at briefing sessions attended by administrators and teachers. It en listed the support of State and regional educational agencies such as State education departments and the Associated Public School Systems (an organization of regional school study councils). Moreover, it provided an integrated publishing program of materials for teachers and a field staff which rendered systematic followup service as well as initial briefing sessions or "workshops." But, as an observer pointed out in 1960 the termination of its active phase left citizenship education in many high schools without a significant stimulus.3 In justice to the citizenship education project it should be said here that it sought to decentralize its operations in anticipation of the termination of its field services. It therefore undertook to promote establishment of a number of citizenship education centers under regional sponsorship. This was accomplished in the late 1950's. Why this brief excursion into these two projects? The reason is that both demonstrate the necessity for constant follow through, for continued efforts to consolidate gains, for continuing attempts to improve on going programs. The agency best equipped for this responsibility is the local school system, through the leadership delegated to its superintendent and principals. It is only realistic, however, to point out that immediate launching of a large-scale enterprise at the local level, be it in citizenship education or anti-Communist education, will be likely to collapse of its own weight. A small-scale operation, on the other hand, launched, as urged earlier, by a status teacher, is more likely to "catch on." And, when it does, things happen. So launched in a sympathetic environment, the enterprise has considerable chance of both horizontal and vertical expansion. In what soil is this newly planted seed most likely to grow? Plant it among familiar things; that is, teach anti-Communist topics along with traditional topics. For instance, girls and boys in a junior high school American history class have just learned, probably for the first time, of John Peter Zenger and his fight for freedom of the press in colonial America. Here is rich opportunity for the teacher to take up the consideration of freedom of the press-as it has developed since that memorable trial in New York City almost 250 years ago-in contrast to Communist censorship of newspapers, radio, and television today. As for talented students in a senior high school American history class, the alert teacher might encourage a discussion of de Toucqueville's "Democracy in America" (available in paperbacks) to pin down that author's observations in terms of our own country and Russia. These illustrations merely suggest the opportunities that await American history teachers eager to relate past and present in terms that are meaningful to their students. For the teacher of world history, the opportunities are perhaps even greater because he deals with such a vast stage; for instance, the procession of "men on horseback" who today ride television and microphone; the ancient conflict over religious liberty and its status in the free world and Communist world today. And in terms of present-day matters that civics, problems of democracy, and current events classes consider, what is the situation 3 Franklin Patterson, "High Schools for a Free Society: Education for Citizenship in American Secondary Schools," The Free Press of Glencoe, Ill., 1960, p. 34. of labor organizations in the U.S.S.R. as compared with that in our own country? In short, the well-grounded teacher whose eyes are not blinded by the demands of a rigid syllabus knows what he can do; all he needs is the encouragement that he will get from time to plan, from time to pick out the learning materials he knows he needs. Help a few hundred of these proven, dedicated teachers the status teacherswith time and resources and they will show others what they need to know in terms these others will understand. The need for meeting the teacher where he is It is this writer's opinion that the most immediate and fertile field for anti-Communist education is the junior and senior high school social studies program. In a memorandum dated August 1, 1961, from New York State's Commissioner of Education James E. Allen, Jr., to city, village, and district superintendents of schools, and supervising principals throughout that State, the following statement, which gives strong support to this view, appears: The dangers of Communist infiltration and subversion have been included as part of the curriculum in New York State for many years. So also have the advantages of the American democratic tradition and the basic concepts of individual freedom underlying that tradition. Democracy and communism are not, however, taught as separate courses, out of their natural context. Rather, they are introduced at appropriate points in the school program, particularly in the social studies sequence ** The term "social studies" often has been misunderstood and misinterpreted. The social studies are "the social sciences simplified for pedagogical purposes." Patterns of course organization and content in junior and senior high school social studies programs vary somewhat from State to State and school to school. The most widely taught social studies programs, however, tend to follow this sequence: 5 Junior high school: Grade 7. Geography, sometimes world, sometimes Eastern Hemisphere; or American history (required). Grade 8. American history (required). Grade 9. Civics (required). Senior high school: Grade 10. World history (optional). Grade 11. American history (required either here or in grade 12). Grad 12. Problems of democracy (optional). Within this widely followed sequence, however, greatest emphasis upon communism and the U.S.S.R. is most apt to be found in the world history (grade 10) and problems of democracy_(grade 12) courses. And both of these courses are "optional" ones. But whether courses be optional or required ones, what are the normally taught topics or areas to which the prepared teacher can apply anti-Communist education? Such a checklist of widely taught social studies areas was prepared by Mr. John O. Steinberg, head of the department 4 For yɔnel 422ount of the term “social studies” and its use consult "Teaching the Social Studies," Edgar Bruce Waley, D.C. Heath & Co., Boston, Mass., 1942, pp. 3-8. It should be noted that courses in licated as "option" are not necessarily "electives" in the general sense of the term. A local school system may require its students to take courses that may be elective in other nearby or State school systems. For an account of current trends in junior-senior high school social studies programs consult "Social Studies in Secondary Schools: Curriculum and Methods," Dorothy McClure Fraser and Edith West, Ronald Press, New York, N. Y., 1961, pp. 14-30, |