The shop Walter shared with his classmates wasn't a laboratory, with the computer simulators and heavily guarded, scaled down drills and prefabricated kits found in schools of the future. His shop teacher's name is long forgotten, but his influence on Walter remained with him forever. In 1935, young Walter took his first shop class in the fifth grade at P.A. As a child, his bare feet were constantly coated with a mixture of dirt and marble dust from running in and out of the shop, which made up the first floor of his family's home. He grew up in New Orleans as the son of a marble and granite cutter. Four years of post-secondary education, it seems, is not for all. The American College Testing Program, an organization that provides assessment, research, information, and program management services in the broad areas of education and workforce development, estimates that one in three students fail or drop out of college after one year ( Even among those high-school graduates who do enroll in colleges and universities, many fail to complete a four-year program. Others, once they have completed high school, simply do not wish to devote another four years to study. Some students prefer careers that do not require a four-year college degree-careers such as auto mechanics, cosmetology, or drafting. For despite the push from some parents and politicians for all high school graduates to enroll in four-year colleges, many high school students will not do so. Or perhaps it was the teacher who taught a life-long skill-a skill that provided a steady job, a favorite hobby, or an income source when other jobs vanished.įor some high school students it is indeed the teachers of practical skills who prove most memorable. What people recall "is the teacher who made them understand algebra for the first time, or love literature, or feel as if they would grow up to be somebody worthwhile" (p. In the end, what sticks in memory, Hartocollis reminds us, is a great teacher. , Anemona Hartocollis writes, "No one remembers a great school system or a great chancellor, a great textbook, or a great curriculum" ( How about a terrific worksheet? In an article in the Raise your hand if you remember a great test you once took. But it was Carissa Chen, a Harvard student, who underlined. Wolff-Platt first learned of her connection to enslaved people from James Shea, a former curator at Longfellow House, a national historic site in Cambridge, when they were both doing research on in about 2016. Wolff-Platt, the new information has meant reconsidering her past, and the forces that have subtly shaped her life. “Who were these people, what happened to them?”įor Ms. Wolff-Platt and her family could get a fuller picture of how their ancestors’ involuntary labor played an unsung role in establishing the university’s prestige and riches. Both the university and the descendants are debating, What is justice now, not only for the families of the enslaved, but for society?īut beyond the money, the project offers the possibility that Ms. If the experience of other universities is any guide, it is likely to be a contentious process. Harvard has pledged $100 million, largely as an endowment, to its project. Harvard joins universities like Georgetown, Brown and the University of Virginia in trying to atone for their links to slavery by erecting monuments, renaming buildings and, in Georgetown’s case, offering the children of descendants the equivalent of legacy status for admission. As part of that effort, Harvard plans to trace the lineage of enslaved people at the college to the present day, saying that direct acknowledgment of lineage “is a vital step in its quest for truth, reconciliation and repair.” Now she has been swept up in Harvard’s campaign, announced in April, to make amends for its collusion in the slave trade. “It shouldn’t be that way, but the older people, they never spoke of it.” To talk about the possibility that her ancestors were enslaved was a family taboo, Ms. Thanks to a student research project on the university’s ties to slavery, she and her extended family have become the first to be publicly identified as descendants of enslaved men and women who served Harvard’s presidents, professors and - in their case - benefactors. That revelation led to an even more surprising connection to Harvard University - a place she had lived near much of her life but where she had never imagined she belonged. Wolff-Platt, who is 80, learned just a few years ago that she was related to the Vassalls. Standing at the edge of a crypt in the church basement, she marveled that her ancestor Darby Vassall, born enslaved, had been buried here, improbably sharing a grave with the couple who owned his parents. On a cloudy day this summer, Roberta Wolff-Platt paid a visit to Christ Church, a short walk from Harvard Yard.
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