Education professor ne’er-do-well Mel Fuller once drew a raucous
guffaw from campus radical John Mallios when he made a plea to the students in
his “Issues in Education” class to wear suitable clothes when visiting schools
and in anticipating student teaching:
“You know, many people in Dallas consider SMU to be a hotbed of
American radicalism.”
Mallios could scarcely contain himself, first with sardonic laughter,
then in stunned and silent anger. This
was after all a university in which the student body had gone 60% for Richard
Nixon and 40% for George McGovern in a mock election of November 1972.
While Mallios sat stunned, I commented without raising my hand,
“I find no reason why you would not explain the error of that
preposterous characterization, which I wish were true, to school personnel--- and I have no patience with your request that
male student visitors and teachers wear coats and ties or strive to meet any
standard except high quality teaching.”
Fuller just wore his typically court-fool grin and tried to wait
out one of those awkward moments that drew this comment from my roommate, Al
Deright, of my junior year:
“You know, Gary, I admire your outspoken stances, and to be sure
you’re usually right, but you know---
the things you say make people uncomfortable.”
Fuller felt mighty uncomfortable.
I would continue to make him so many times.
He really did not know what to do with me and my obvious contempt
for the vacuity of his course and the facile nature of his thinking. Dennis still laughs about a touchy-feely
exercise he was putting us through instead of discussing a school system that
produced even among those who managed to graduate hordes of students who could
not read beyond a second grade level. We
were supposed to gather in circles of about eight or so, with two people left
outside and faced with the dilemma of how to invite them inside without
dropping hands securing the circle:
I was one of the two left out of the group forming the
circle; the other was a young woman of
average height and weight. I immediately
resolved my group’s dilemma by lifting her over the group and dropping her
gently inside the circle.
Dennis beamed. The incident
became a standard in our reminiscences of education classes, along with
Buchanan’s “sign of the buffalo” and our once being asked in another
touchy-feely exercise to get in touch with our surroundings with the
exhortation to
“Feel the air--- shape it
into little balls.”
As to that earlier class and the reference to the campus as a
hotbed for radicalism, Mallios came up to me afterward and thanked me profusely
for speaking up after Fuller’s comment had left his leftist tongue in radical knots.
…………………………………………………………………………………
What made the era at SMU so fascinating is that there was, despite
the dominant conservatism and the Greek system vibe, a liberal and even radical
element in the student body. Jerry Rubin
made a well-received campus visit, urging students to
“Vote for McGovern. He just
tells two percent of the truth, but that 2% is that much more than Richard
Nixon has ever told.”
George Carlin and Dick Gregory made a splash with leftwing
comedic performances at the SMU Student Union.
There were organizations such as Students for a Democratic Society
(the campus affiliate of that conservative’s anathema, SDS) and Students Against
Racism. Feminists were in the minority
but there were those among us who relished the visits from members of the
National Organization of Women (NOW) and publication of the first issue of
Gloria Steinem’s Ms. Magazine. Students congregated with alacrity to hear
celebrities such as Peter Yarrow (Peter, Paul, and Mary) speak at the autumn 1969
Moratorium in protest of the War in Vietnam.
There was even a very tenuous, brief takeover of the SMU
president’s office. I was in the crowd
outside gathered to consider the action but was not among those who implemented
the takeover. I discerned that in all
likelihood my radicalism would be more long-lived than the commitments of those
engaged in the takeover. With that
decision-making gift bestowed upon me by Big Marv, I determined then and
thenceforth that my radicalism would not take the form of transient takeovers
but rather the dedication to transformation of as many student lives as
possible via the power of knowledge-intensive education.
I have never been much of a mass-gathering protester or
demonstrator. My activism has to date
been waged more singly, on the strength of research and facts that pertain to
manifestly monstrous situations that go to the root rather than linger at the
surface of social and political vexations.
This has led me to make those appearances at every Public Comment period
of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education for six years
running and to create my various platforms for what has up to now been a rather
singularly waged exposure of intellectual and moral corruption.
But I admire fervently the highly directed, well-conceived, local
orientation of Saul Alinsky-type radicalism.
The education establishment of Minneapolis will be encountering
such radicalism.
I will organize the movement.
And, ironically, much of the spirit that will animate that movement
gathered force at a university that, if not a hotbed, might be considered my
seedbed for radicalism.
No comments:
Post a Comment