Harlem Stories: Contesting Educational Goals and Strategies for Reform in the 20th Century

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

How did residents and professionals in the New York City neighborhoods that comprise Harlem define their educational goals for students and adults, and go about pursuing these in the middle and late decades of the century? How do their stories inform our understanding not only of struggles over schooling in Harlem at this time, but of the interactions between activism and the broader policy choices and structural forces against which activists pushed? This group of papers examines examples of teacher and paraprofessional activism, decentralization, and out-of-school learning for youth to explore the multiple and at times conflicting ideas about how to improve learning for Harlem’s students. Discussion includes commentary from historical as well as contemporary perspectives.

Sub Unit

• Division F - Historical Inquiry in Education

Chair

• Ernest D. Morrell, Teachers College, Columbia University

Papers

• Cinema for Social Change: The Human Relations Film Series of the Harlem Committee of the Teachers Union, 1936-1950 - Lisa Rabin, George Mason University; Craig Kridel, University of South Carolina

• The Idea of Skill in 1960s Harlem - Ansley T. Erickson, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Paraprofessionalism in Harlem, 1960-1980 - Nicholas A. Juravich, Columbia University

• The Aftermath of the Community Control Movement in Central and East Harlem - Heather Lewis, Pratt Institute

Discussants

• Clarence Taylor, Baruch College - CUNY

• Basil Anthony Smikle, Columbia University