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STRUGGLE: THE HIGHEST FORM OF EDUCATION

JAMES E. CAMPBELL

A FEW MONTHS AGO, the editors spoke to me about doing an article for FREEDOMWAYS on "New Trends in Education." At that time it seemed as though the emphasis of the article would be on the sophisticated hardware and programmed texts being developed to enhance the service of teaching. What follows is the kind of sobering I went through as the relationship between the delivery systems and the content became clearer to me. I hope that what I've done does not disturb the balance of this important issue of FREEDOMWAYS. I fit does, please do not hesitate to leave this note out of our most important quarterly. 

They may still want to entitle this "New Trends in Education," or, if that title doesn't fit, they may want to try something like "Struggle: The Highest Form of Education," which is a paraphrase of an idea stated by Lerone Bennett during an address he made at the recent Afro-American Educators Conference in Chicago. I think it is apropos because "our" education-and, the real education of the country-must come out of the experiences, i.e., struggle, we have had with the United States since we were first imported. That struggle is the only basis of our reality-of our objective conditions; of the objective conditions within the organization called the United States. The new trends in "our" education, then, of necessity, will have to be in the area of content, as well as in the area of the means of instruction. That content must come out of the lessons of our historical struggle here and its African roots.

To date, the means of instruction have undergone a qualitative change while the content has only changed quantitatively. By that

James E. Campbell is an Assistant Principal in the New York City public school system and has been associated with the Educational Television.

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