Author: Devra Hall Levy

Sorry to have gone missing. I could plead pity for my infected jaw and my week on antibiotics, true and painful, but not so much so as to stop me from reading and writing, much of which this past week had to do with my ongoing class reunion — we now have a yahoo group and the conversations are many and varied, ranging from “do you remember so-and-so?” to how to save the world.

One of the topics I raised was actually a question my dad recently asked me: why aren’t today’s young people protesting against the war and the government? I mentioned that not having any children I feel rather far removed from “today’s young people,” but then wondered in writing, “and why aren’t we [protesting]? Are we too old, too complacent, too disillusioned….?” (As youngsters we were extremely political and outspoken. Not only did we attend marches in Washington and rallys in Central Park, we staged ourown mini-marches outside of FAO Schwartz protesting the sale of war toys. “GI Joe Must Go!”)

In response to my question, one classmate, an educator, reported having “escorted and travelled with groups of college-aged folk to several of the anti-war demos in the last few years. The demonstrations are FULL of young people; but there are way, way too few people, period. They are also full of people of our parents’ generation — but sorely lacking in folk of our own.” We ‘talked’ about our physical limitations, family obligations, and responsibilities that preclude the risk of jail for civil disobedience. Many of us sign petitions and discuss politics via the Internet, but as one classmate opined “I think we’re wasting our time getting distracted by the internet, when we should be on the streets. The kids are waiting for us to lead them there, and to join them there. They are waiting for us to organize the demonstrations, while we’re waiting for them to do so.”

I was glad to hear that there is more activity than is on my radar screen. I think the media downplays the protests today, at least I don’t seem to be as aware of them. Or maybe it’s just that they seem much smaller. Or maybe more activity on the East Coast? I’ve seen the occasional Los Angeles news report of some protesters, usually in Westwood (near UCLA), but they show only a handful of people with placards and drivers honking in support as they pass by. [Of course this is not counting the two recent immigration rallys and marches, but that was predominantly the Latino community mobilizing themselves…which is also a good thing] There are small protests against all kinds of things (movies, for example), and the opposers somehow find it easy to dismiss — “oh, it’s just them, not important, no big deal.” Also, those big protests back then were news while today they seem passe, a relic of an idea from the past, an idea that did not work…

I tell myself that there are many things I would do if I were single…part truth, part excuse. My husband, even though he is not about to join any picket line, says that when the middle class really starts hurting, then there will be a true revolution and we will all take to the streets. He figures that by then he won’t be here. Quite honestly, I find myself hoping that I’m not either. (I know that’s selfish, and easier for me to say because I have no children.)

That being said, I am not sure that protests in the street are any more effective than Internet petitions. Votes used to equate to power, but if They are controlling the elections (whether by lying or lobbying, rigging results, or just employing scare tactics), then even our votes don’t count. It’s a power and money game, and those who don’t have either can’t play.

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Correction: A friend wrote in: “freudian slip?!?: “I mentioned that having any children I feel rather far removed from “today’s young people,” but then wondered in writing, “and why aren’t we?” Hmmm, I reply. Grandma always said “haste makes waste.” In a hurry to post, I failed to edit. The above has been corrected acordingly.

I mentioned making a quick trip to New York earlier this month. It was a last minute decision to attend a school reunion. The fact that is was an elementary school reunion seems to be of much amusement to my friends from recent years. It wasn’t until I noticed their amused or bewildered reaction that I realized, or rather remembered, just how unusual, and privileged, my early schooling was — privileged for two reasons, neither of which being that it was a private school. The first reason is the school’s philosophy, described today on their website as follows:

“Education at the School is experience-based, interdisciplinary, and collaborative. The emphasis is on educating the whole child — the entire emotional, social, physical, and intellectual being — while at the same time, the child’s integrity as learner, teacher, and classmate is valued and reinforced.”

The School for Children is a demonstration school for what is now known as the Bank Street College of Education. When it began in 1916 is was the Bureau of Educational Experiments, a research group founded by Lucy Sprague Mitchell. The group decided that they could best study child development, with the fewest restrictions, if they had their own school, so they started with a nursery school in 1918. Mitchell was not the only one with progressive ideas, a Dewey-esque learning by doing approach; her two colleagues, Caroline Pratt and Elisabeth Irwin also founded schools in Greenwich Village, City and Country School and Little Red Schoolhouse, respectively. And when BEE’s kids “graduated,” most continued their education at one of those schools.

In 1930 the school acquired and converted the old Fleishman’s yeast factory at 69 Bank Street, that was the building where we attended school, but it was not until the late 50s that they decided to start adding classes so that the oldest students could stay on…and so that they could continue to study us and train teachers in our classrooms. When we graduated from 8th grade we were only the third class to do so. We were 69 Bank Street’s Class of 69. We were a special group; I thought that then, and I still do.

The second privilege, likely a result of the first, is that my little class (class size was always small, about 18) was more like a family than a class, and that closeness became evident once again when we began to reconnect. Half of our class attended school together, grew up together, for nine, ten, and eleven years. Although most of us had not been in contact since our only prior reunion in 1994, and some had been out of touch since graduation, it was as if the intervening years melted away – the fondness of one another, the school, and I suppose our lost youth, coupled with curiosity, eroded any obstacles. Of course we are each closer to some than to others (as it was then, so it is still today), but if old sibling-like rivalries existed in the past, they are no longer evident and the strong bond forged in the 1960s remains today.

Soon after we graduated the school moved uptown, grew in size, and its attitudes changed with the times. Their focus shifted to their immediate operations and they lost track of and interest in their graduates. They even lost our records. We found that out when we organized our own reunion twelve years ago. Of course their interest peeked when someone told them of our 25th-year reunion and gave them addresses – suddenly they were interested…in our checkbooks.

Most of our teachers are gone now, a few retired or moved on to other careers, but many have died. They were the ones who, with guidance from the educators at the college, saw us through. We are happy to have also reconnected with Pearl Zeitz, our 7s teacher (we didn’t have “grades”), and Peter Sauer, our science teacher who came on board during our last two or three years because parents began to get nervous about how we would fare in “the real world.” And of those no longer with us there are a few who we miss and remember fondly: Hannah McElheny (6s), David Wickens (8s), Betty Crowell (9s), Muriel Morgan (10s and 13s), and Hugh McElheny (music). The educators who studied us are long gone, replaced by administrators and fundraisers. I’d like to think that Lucy Sprague Mitchell, Barbara Biber, Edna Shapiro, John Neimeyer, and others at the College, along with our teachers, would have wanted to know how we, their experiments, turned out. I think they’d all be pleased.