We Need a Strong Alliance for Schools
Deborah Meier continues her conversation with Mike Klonsky today.
Dear Mike,
You've got it more right than wrong. I'm just as concerned about the relationship between a school and its community, but I've been paid to think about what can be done for the particular families and children I serve in school. So my creative, social, and intellectual energy has gone into exploring what schools could be if they served those most likely to be without a voice or power within our democracy as it is.
After a year subbing in Chicago, my teaching experience was in a school across the street from my home in Chicago, where my kids went to school, which predominantly served African-American families.
I fell in love with teaching 4- and 5-year-olds, and the parents and grandparents who came along with them were an added joy. The richest and poorest kids were African-American—and constituted three-fourths of the student body. Since I was active in the community (battling an urban renewal plan being pushed by the University of Chicago) the schooling and community issues often crossed over.
When I worked in Central and East Harlem, while living in what was—at that time—a somewhat integrated West side, my situation shifted. (Except for the four years in the early 1970s when I was an elected school board member for the district, which covered both the West side and much of We Need a Strong Alliance for Schools - Bridging Differences - Education Week: