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El~cfl 3idligan Batty
Seventy-eight years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan

ceteris patribus

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420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich.

News Phone: 764-0552'

Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in al: reprints.

FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1969

NIGHT EDITOR: JIM NEUBACHER


Training teachers
for the inner city

ONCE LONG AGO, back in a past that is
almost past recall, we thought that
going to the University would be a Good
Thing..
We were herded in as freshmen, all of us
idealistic about one thing or another. We
were going to find Truth, we were going
to gain a Liberal Education, we were going
to take our firststep toward changing the
world. Or we weren't sure quite what we
were going to do, but we knew that some-
thing momentous would happen.
Sure, we were aware that "you can't get
any good jobs without a college education,"
that our friendly local draft board would
take a dim view of any other occupation,
and that our parents and relatives had
expected us to go to college since before we
could talk, but we were usually able to
ignore such practical considerations. For
the future was before us, and we would
do great things.
THEN WE found out what was really
going on.
The zeal we brought from high school
soon evaporated amid the deadening at-

mosphere of the 500-student freshman
survey courses. And when we did get into
a smaller class, we discovered that the
professor lectured to the 20 of us as if we
were still the same 500.
Finally it dawned on us that the reason
we were in college was because the state
expected us to earn diplomas and our par-
ents needed a convenient way to explain
our lack of economic productivity to their
friends. And we found out that we were
expected to go on to some form of grad-
uate or professional school because all the
magazine articles were telling us that a
B.A. just isn't enough any more.
We also discovered that we weren't real-
ly learning anything in class. We learned to
judge a class by how little we were bored
by it. We learned that intellectual stimu-
lation might be found discussing a book or
a concept with friends in the MUG, but
rarely in the classroom. We learned that if
you are intelligent and do mediocre work
you will get a "B" for it, or maybe a "C,"
if the professor is applying more honest
standards.
And we found ourselves Ba'hai, or the

Resistance, or yoga, or even The Michigan
Daily to occupy the more serious part of
our minds, the part that the University
seems unable to challenge.
MORE AND MORE We discovered that
the only important things we had learned
on campus were of the non-academic
variety. In having new experiences and
meeting new people we could find a justi-
fication of sorts for remaining in school.

jenny stiller. ..
WE DROP back in because the world is
a structured place, and most of us are
bourgeois enough to want one or another
of the comforts the Affluent Society can
give us. Not all of us are revolutionaries
or mystics by nature, and asceticism is not
the only path to happiness.
It is not so much that we want two cars
and a house in suburbia, but a roof and
maybe some privacy would be nice. Beyond
that, according to taste, books, maybe, or
records, or a fast cycle or something good
to smoke.
Once you recognize that perhaps having
a bit of money wouldn't be a bad thing,
the idea is to try to con the world into
giving you some without making too many
demands on you in return. Which means
you try to find something interesting to do
which the world put value on. Which usual-
ly means that you need a college degree.
SO YOU COME back to school, and you
stick it out until you get the diploma or
the graduate degree you need.
After that, all you can do is hang loose
and hope the world will leave you alone.

But there is a limit to how many
experiences a person can have in
Arbor, and even a limit to the people
seem to be worth meeting.

new
Ann
who

THE EDUCATION SCHOOL has been
clearly deficient in its attempts to
train teachers for inner-city schools.
Figures show that only four per cent
of the teachers in Detroit took t h e i r
teacher training in the University's edu-
cation school.
The University's failure to train des-
perately-needed teachers stems from a
lack of preparation for urban situations.
Most students feel incapable of dealing
with a situation to which they have had
no exposure.,
Thus, the bulk of University education
students opt for the "convenient loca-
tion" to student-teach in the familiar
surroundings of the Ann Arbor area.
Furthermore the current urban ed
courses, the students complain, do noth-
ing to make up for this lack of exposure.
The faculty also realizes the failure of
the University to prepare ghetto teachers,
Editorial Staff
HENRY GRIX, Editor
STEVE NISSEN RON LANDSMAN
City- Editor Managing Editor
LESLIE WAYNE .......................... Arts Editor
JOHN GRAY .................... .... Literary Editor
JIM HECK................... Editorial Page Editor
JENNY STILLER ............... Editorial Page Editor
MARCIA ABRAMSON .. .. Associate Managing Editor
PHILIP BLOCK ........... Associate Managing Editor
ANDY SACKS ...................Photo Editor
Sports Staff,
JOEL BLOCK, Sports Editor

and an urban ed commission was estab-
lished to discuss and formulate solutions
to increase the number of university
graduates who will accept jobs in urban
areas.
ALTHOUGH THERE have been no con-
crete proposals yet, many of the mem-
bers of the commission feel field exper-
ience - actual learning by exposure to
the urban school situation - must be in-
corporated in any effective urban teach-
ing program.
It seems likely that such field exper-
ience will be included in the proposal
the commission will present to the ed
school faculty before the end of March.
The faculty should accept without
hesitation such a program as a necessary
addition to the education curriculum pro-
gram, and give it top priority for imple-
mentation by fall.
Field experience would serve a two-
fold purpose. It would train and prepare
students to be responsible and effective
teachers after graduation, and at the
same time, it could be a valuable com-
munity service.
THE ARRIVAL OF new' dean Wilbur
Cohen is an opportune time for the
inception of critical self-examination and
much-needed reforms, in the ed school.
The University's location in Ann Ar-
bor can no longer be allowed to justify
its disgracefully small contribution to the
corps of inner city teachers.
-SHARON WEINER

So for one reason or another, we drop
out, and we stick around town for a while,
and then we head off elsewhere to look
for America. We bum around if we can,
or get a room somewhere for meditation;
we pick up odd jobs here and there or one
job in one place if we find a town we like.
Eventually, unless we are of 'the rare sort
who is happy as a hermit, or talented
enough to make it as an artist, we drop
back in.

"When's he scheduled to visit this wall.

e,
. . .

t

Letters to the Editor

i

Bowing out
To the Editor:
ONMARCH 5 ,The Daily pro-
perly reported that we were
running for the offices of presi-
dent and vice-president of SGC.
We are now announcing our with-
drawal from that race. To avoid
any misunderstanding, we'd like
to explain our reasons for with-
drawing.
The two weeks before the close
of petitioning were a period of
extraordinary confusion. The
number of possible candidates
seemed to grow every day, as
though some place in the base-
ment of the SAB a punch press
were turning them out by the doz-
en.
It was a mess. The only charac-
teristic common to all those in-
terested in running seemed to be
a lack of previous experience with
SGC, and questionable reasons for
wanting executive office. At this
point we decided to run.

But then, just before petition-
ing closed, Bob Nelson and Mary
Livingston filed their, petitions.
We had known Bob to be hesi-
tant about running for president
while still a sophomore, had urg-
ed him to run anyway, and were
glad when he finally did.
HE AND MARY STAND for the
principles we have stood for: stu-
dent control of their own lives and
student power (proportional to
numbers and interest) in all Uni-
versity decision making; a demo-
cratic student government serving
the interests of the student body;
and an SGC alive to local, state,
and national issues in- which stu-
dents, either as citizens or human
beings, have a stake. We knew
that a Nelson-Livingston ticket
could offer the studentbody sub-
stantial experience with student
government.
We could see no reason for con-
tinuing our candidacy when doing
so would only split the vote of

those who would vote for a tick-
et that not only made the r i g h t
promises but also had the will
and experience to keep the pro-
mises made. We had no wish to
turn the election into a lottery.
Therefore, we chose to with-
draw, to give our support to Nel-
son-Livingston, and to 'ur g e
those who would have supported
Davis-Hollenshead to vote as we
will.
-Michael Davis, Grad
-Carol Hollenshead, '71
March 12
Letters to the editor should
be typed triple spaced and no
longer than 300 words. All let-
ters are subject to editing, and
those over 300 words will gen-
erally be shortened. Unsigned
letters will not be printed.

ANDY BARBAS, Executive Sports Editor
BILL CUSUMANO...... .....Associate Sports
JIM FORRESTER ............ Associate Sports
ROBIN WRIGHT..,...... . Associate Sports
JOE MARKER...................,Contributing

Editor
Editor
Editor
Editor

Ending educational prejudice: Foisting change on the why

ites

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Yesterday Prof.
Greenbaum discussed the reasons our
society and institutions of higher edu-
cation are prejudiced against minor-
ity groupsaand Negroes in particular.
He indjicated, however, that many
universities, including Michigan, were
on the verge of takng giant s t e p s
forward in rectifying their inequitable
policies. Prof. Greenbaum is the Asst.
Director of the Phoenix Project. His
article is copyrighted by the National
Council of English Teachers.)
By LEONARD GREENBAUM
THE IMPETUS at the University
(for initiating rectification of pre-
judiced policies, ed.) is partly the re-
salt of gradual involvement of an in-
ternal program, and partly a response
to two surveys by the federal govern-
ment to ascertain t h e University's
compliance with the civil right sec-
tions of several federal acts that sup-
port educational institutions and re-
search contractors. The thrust of the
surveys was to accuse the University
of being, by admission of its own fac-
ulty and students, "basically for rich
white students."
The report recommended that both
by w o r d and deed the University
change its image, not among whites,
but among Negroes. To do this, one
has to change not Negroes, but
whites, bypersuasion or by direction.
The obvious way to change t h e
image is to increase the number of
students and the number of faculty.
To this end, schools commit them-
selves. If you say to a university or
college, "Increase the number of Ne-
gro students" t h e school responds
immediately, "Compensatory Pro-
grams."
IT IS A LEARNED response and it
means, "Special Recruitment Prac-
tices, Financial Aid, Lowering of Ad-
mission Criteria, Pre-Admission Pre-
parations, Remedial Studies, Tutorial
Assistance, Lighter 'Course Loads,
Five-year Degree Programs," and
sometimes e v e n, "Separate Classes
and Separate Housing."

There is a simple equation at work:
Negro equals 1 o w income equals
culturally disadvantaged.
The same set of mind that was de-
termining white attitudes at the PTA
meeting at the elementary school is
determining white attitudes at the
college level.
MORE THAN 80 colleges and uni-
versities now have some type of com-
pensatory program for the "disad-
vantaged," a euphemism that is tak-
en to mean Negro, but which in real-
ity means pwple from a variety of
American minorities, including t h e

- how to increase the population
of students who are from low in-
come families;
-how to increase the population
of students who are culturally de-
prived;
-how to increase the population
of students who are physically and
perceptually handicapped.
THE SOLUTION of any one may
overlap into the others, but each can
be approached separately; and all to-
gether comprise a restatement of the
role of higher education in general
and state universities in particular.

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"What is fundamentally at issue is, not only a
matter of white versus black. That exists, but this
is part of a broader problem of opening up the edu-
cational establishment, of making it inclusive rather
than exclusive."
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poor whites, the Puerto Ricans, the
Indians, and the Mexicans.
According to a survey by J o h n
Egerton, appearing in the March and
April issues of the Southern Educa-
tion Report, of the 84 schools with
such programs, less than 20 are ap-
proaching their task with any syste-
matic procedure and no more than
eight are taking students who, by.the
school's 1 admission, are h i g h risks.
More important, the numbers of stu-
dents involved across the nation are
small, statistically negligible.
To attempt to correct an imbalanc-
ed racial population by initiating
compensatory programs is to allow
prejudices to define programs and
in turn to allow programs to rein-
force prejudices. Each university
really has four separate student pop-
ulation problems:
- how to increase the population
of students who are Negro;

Steps that are aimed solely toward
increasing the population of Negro
students could include:
-identifying college-bound high
school students,
- persuading the Negro commun-
ity that the university is not a dis-
criminatory organization, and
- correcting discriminatory prac-
tices within the university and with-
in the community in which the uni-
versity exists.
Such steps would have as their ob-
jective substantially increasing the
proportion, e.g., having Michigan
jump from its current 3 per cent to
a more proportional 10 to 15 per cent.
This cannot be done by special pro-
grams dealing with small numbers,
but by the generation of applications
for normal admissions.
STEPS TOWARD INCREASING
the population of students from low-
income families a r e further away.
There is a premise in the air that
higher education is primarily restrict-
ed to the middle and upper classes,
and that fellowshipand scholarship
programs assist not the poor but the
middle income groups. Schools and
colleges are going to have to seek
hard information on t h e i r student
populations to discredit this premise.
And should the premise be substan-
tiated, the patterns by which finan-
cial aid are distributed will need to
be reshaped.
To increase the population of stu-
dents who a eulturally disadvan-

that truly works 'with the culturally
disadvantaged, and that d o e s not
mean Negroes per se, a school has to
make a goal commitment - not to
broaden horizons, not to provide in-
tellectual stimulation, not to give the
disadvantaged a chance to make it
on their own, but to have them earn
a college degree at t h e same time
that we serve our own ends of chang-
ing and modifying ourselves.
Steps toward increasing the popu-
lation of students with physical and
perceptual handicaps may be the
most.difficult to institute. From pre-
nursery on, these students suffer the
deprivation of a segregation that is
as emphatic as any that exists along
color or class lines.
Occasionally isolated students, in
wheel chairs, in braces, with seeing-
eye dogs, enter and survive college.
Most never have the opportunity,
their aspirations blunted by a society
that does not wish to be bothered by
the non-standard versions of the hu-
man condition.
Handicapped students with proven
intelligence do n o t survive school.
Handicapped students with damaged
perceptual or expressive biological
systems are not given the assistance
they would need to prove their abil-
ity. College for them is not part of
the system. In this area, an entire
rethinking is necessary; and like most
revolutions, it may have to come from
the bottom.
WHAT IS FUNDAMENTALLY at
issue is not only a matter of white
versus black. That exists, but this is
part of a broader problem of opening
up the educational establishment, of
making it inclusive rather than ex-
clusive. The great blessing of racial
discord is' that it protrudes like the
top of an iceberg, identifying t h e
large social base that exists beneath
the surface.
The sheriff w h o beats prisoners
who are Negroes also beats prisoners
who are white. T h e school system
that deprives children who are Ne-
gro of adequate school facilities de-
prives children who are white of ade-
quate school facilities.
The "Coleman Report" showed that
in terms of such indicators of school
quality as class size, physical plant,
teacher qualifications, the education-
ally deprived groups in the United
States are children, regardless of
race, who live in the South and in
the rural North.
THE WAY WE APPROACH race

ciety, the latter b e i n g the one in
which morbid predictions are made
for all kinds of people early in life
and the system then operates so as
to make these predictions come true.
The game begins in nursery school.
It hardly reaches the university. The
National Council of Teachers of Eng-
lish Task Force on teaching English
to the disadvantaged did not study a
single language program for the dis-
advantaged at the college or univer-
sity level. T h e truly disadvantaged
simply do not get, except as isolated
anomalies, to college.
It seems almost irrational to thrust
into such a pattern departments of
English and assign to them respon-
sibilities for the mission-oriented
goals of our society. Their principal
function would be in compositior
WILLIAM RILEY PARKER, in an
informative history of English de-
partments, pointed out that "there
was, of course, no compelling reason
at the outset why the teaching of
composition should have b e e n en-
trusted to teachers of English lang-
uage and literature." There is still
no compelling reason; and in fact, if
colleges and universities were to
broaden their role so as to function
as an arm of the mission-oriented
society, there may be good reason to
allow English departments to elimi-
nate what they have long wanted to
eliminate.
There is, for example, no evidence
that teachers of English have any of
the requisite skills or sympathies
needed to deal, in a working relation-

a shared implicit value rather than
an explicit one that is explainable,
teachable, learnable. While English
departments have a generally liberal
reputation, essentially their liberal-
ism is a modernized humanism, in
which moderation, rationalism, and
restraint, founded on an historical
gallery of great men and great books,
are the dominant social visions. Eng-
lish departments seem not to be in-
volved in the issues (social and po-
litical) that move back a n d forth
across campuses.
THE REASONS ARE NOT TO BE
treated scornfully. In part, it is what
Weinberg identified as their purity,
their disciplinarity. In part it is the
academic imitation of a style of life
that Donald Hall has criticized, in
Virginia Woolf. He quotes her: "'We
must never be roused . . . . The es-
say must lap us about and draw its
curtain across the world.'" "For Vir-
ginia Woolf," Hall comments, "read-
ing is an ornament of t h e leisure
class and proof that one belongs to
that class.
Reading is dependent on a working

his readers can find him, so they can
come and discuss with him. He is a
writer seeking to re-establish his con-
nection with his audience, to relate
personally to the world around him.
I DO NOT WISH TO condemn the
socially aloof or t h e intellectually
alienated in favor of the socially in-
volved; I do not wish to assign prior-
ities to one over the other. What I do
wish to suggest is that a professor
essentially in harmony with Virginia
Woolf ought not to be expected, ought
not to be burdened, with mission-or-
iented goals.
The purity of departments of Eng-
lish deserves to be respected, and the
tasks of our society reassigned where
they are m o re likely to be served,
alongainterdisciplinary lines to indi-
viduals drawn f r o m the numerous
fields in vWhich verbal ability is a
value (of which English is but one)
and to whom immediate social needs
are important.
Herbert J. Muller's account of the
Anglo-American Conference at Dart-
mouth College, writes, "Only the
trouble remains that these youngsters

*4

j4

EL

*i

"Sartre has written that the ultimate evil is the abil-
ity to make abstract that which is concrete. The con-
crete is the whiteness of our colleges and universi-
ties.
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class . . . to take care of one's quo-
tidian needs . . . a n d on a larger
social structure . . . to provide th e

are in fact backward." We have got
to distinguish between the inability
of the student and the inability of

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