[New post] My Lack of Education Hasn’t Hurt Me None
Irv Oslin posted: " Apologies to Paul Simon Orchard Elementary School on Cleveland's West Side. I'm what some would call self-educated. What I would call self-undereducated. I'm the product of a shitty urban school system and my own shitty attitude. In the "
I'm what some would call self-educated. What I would call self-undereducated.
I'm the product of a shitty urban school system and my own shitty attitude.
In the 1950s, the Cleveland Public School System struggled to keep up with the post-war population explosion — exacerbated by hordes of immigrants, mainly from Appalachia and Puerto Rico, seeking jobs and a better life. I was one generation removed from the hills of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
Earlier in the 20th century, the school system had dealt with another wave of immigration — black folks. The school system — and the City of Cleveland — accomplished this through systematic segregation. Cleveland Public Schools built separate but somewhat equal facilities of the black side of town. This had been so blatant that, in the 1970s, court-ordered busing was imposed on the school system.
I graduated in 1970, before that happened. In a school of 3,000 students, there were fewer than five black kids. That was at West Tech High School. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, at East Tech High School, you can guess the rest.
A history teacher in my high school once said, in front of God and everybody, that a fence should be built along the Cuyahoga River — Cleveland's east/west dividing line — and that black people should be kept on the other side of it. Except he used a different term for black people.
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