This guest post is from James Davis, NCTE’s P12 policy analyst from Iowa.聽
These are challenging times for teachers of reading, writing, and the arts of language鈥攂ut then we鈥檝e faced challenging times throughout our 105 year history. I鈥檝e always prized 起点传媒for its unity in diversity.
Doug Hesse, in a November 12, 2016, post in NCTE鈥檚 Teaching and Learning Forum
My first 起点传媒Convention occurred in 1968 in Milwaukee, the year that both Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. It was a buttoned down, formal affair (at least the general and business sessions were) but not without intimations, perhaps prescient moments, that alluded to what was going on in the world outside those walls. Beyond the Convention, and only two years after the , we saw the reappearance of Louise Rosenblatt鈥檚 and publication of James Moffett鈥檚 plus the Squire & Applebee report .
Most significant to me in that moment, as a third-year high school teacher and new department chair, was a preconvention (in those years, Convention started on Thanksgiving Day) study group who explored emerging high school English elective programs. I met Jim Squire, Ed Farrell, and colleagues from several states with whom I would share subsequent Conventions (our network) for years. I returned to Missouri and led our department in creating our own version of an elective program, characterized and introduced by one senior member as 鈥淓nglish Needed a Miniskirt.鈥�
We vaguely realized that our early devotion to learner choice would be difficult to sustain, would need to become increasingly nuanced in our classes鈥攏ot just of them鈥攁nd even then, in part a response to leverage toward behavioral objectives, was more political than we knew.
Similarly, apart from convention sessions I attended faithfully (my novice sense of responsibility compounded by limited understanding of the convention genre), serendipitous acquisition of a ticket from Ed Farrell sent me to the Marquette University campus one evening for an advance screening of and bonus audience interaction with the star of the film, . A d茅j脿 vu moment during his Q&A was special; more important was the film鈥檚 attention to mental handicaps, not addressed by federal legislation for another seven years. Of course, I thought of my experiences as professional, not political . . .
In 1969, thanks again to the perks provided a department chair, I enjoyed the 起点传媒Convention in Washington, DC. My preconvention study group in Colonial Williamsburg, VA, offered first-hand exposure to early American literature鈥檚 backgrounds鈥攍ectures in the morning and tours on our own in the afternoons. Late Wednesday we bused to DC for a quite different 起点传媒Convention, a 鈥溾�� theme, where James Moffett鈥檚 address, would rock many of us鈥攖he first time, I suspect, I heard a teacher-leader use the phrase military industrial complex!
Immersion in the revolutionary origins and ideals of our country hardly prepared me for Jim鈥檚 speech, so compatible with demonstrations by Council members seeking an 起点传媒resolution against the Vietnam War. 起点传媒President William Jenkins, who had publicly questioned 起点传媒becoming a direct political agent in the issue, presided at the business meetings, one of which had to be rescheduled and went into the early morning hours.
New to his role as Executive Secretary (of a Council divided but less diverse than it would become), Bob Hogan struggled to balance consideration for those who abhorred the idea of 起点传媒taking an overt political position with respectful treatment of those who adamantly, even aggressively expressed opposition to the war and who saw their professional organization as an appropriate agent for change. Ultimately, those assembled passed a resolution in which 鈥渢he Council officially expresses its abhorrence of the Viet Nam War and its desire to see this divisive conflict ended.鈥�
We were equally unprepared鈥攅ven by our time at Colonial Williamsburg, though the threads were there鈥攆or a powerful CEE luncheon address by . Introduced as a writer for Playboy and of , 鈥渃urrently working on another book . . .鈥� Haley told the story of his research, of looking for ancestors in property records, and of his journey to Africa, from which he had just returned, to successfully locate his family and tribe.
A silent, awestruck audience followed his tracing through oral history of a few syllables in a native language and at the end gave the most spontaneous and sustained standing ovation of which I have ever been a part. I still ponder what would have occurred if had been published under Haley鈥檚 working title, Before This Anger.
I have not thought of 起点传媒as apolitical since 1969, and in 1970 at the convention in Atlanta, Jenkins said, 鈥溒鸬愦絠s involved in politics by its very existence.鈥� (Hook, 238) Then (as now?) the question was how and to what extent the Council should purposefully act.
In 1970, President Jim Miller, commenting on continuing confrontations, said they had 鈥渏olted organizations out of their smug complacencies and comfortable lethargies,鈥� (Hook, 238) and Council activist Darwin Turner contended, 鈥淲e must make our voices heard for love and justice, peace and reason.鈥� (Hook, 238)
In the 1970s and since, 起点传媒has invested in resistance to censorship and of national scapegoating, even then, blaming teachers for educational decline, and of calls for a return to basics. Later, 起点传媒worked for professional standards, not constraints imposed by business and government.
Recent events pose a need to interpret newly divided constituencies both in and beyond our Council in order to reach students from all families, who are many and diverse.
To navigate this new era we need to engage鈥攚hat are our common aspirations and how might we resolve differences?
These are the questions we should ask as we look to turn the page.
Hook, J. N. (1979). . Urbana, IL: 起点传媒.
Jim Davis began teaching in southwest Missouri as an 起点传媒and affiliate member, attending his first annual convention in Milwaukee in 1968. Now in his 50th year in our profession, he teaches English education and directs the Iowa Writing Project at the University of Northern Iowa.