The next fifty years; The Urgent and the Important
- Transcript
For the next 50 years. Im Zion. They are the urban environment was the rapid change during the next 50 years. National Educational radio presents a series of programs expressing a variety of opinions on the future of the democratic environment. They were given of the 50th near Crown Prince of the American Institute of planners held in Washington in October of last year. In attendance was any army public affairs director Bill Greenwood
this week speakers examined the next 50 years in terms of the future of education. The minority group its future mental health and problems of identity and America's health needs. One other topic of concern this week is what the problem of increasing leisure time could mean to society. In the remarks that follow the policy recommendations on these great social issues addressing himself to the next 50 years in education is the president of the Center for the Study of democratic institutions and author of many works on American education. Mr. Robert Hutchings. Mr. Hutchings criticisms of the American educational system stem from his well-known liberal views on the subject. Here is Robert Hutchings most urgent matter of education today. Is a state of urban education. Check it a reference to racial integration in the north.
High schools in the Negro districts are largely because. The North High School area of Detroit for example. 57 percent. Of those selected for the draft in 1964. Were rejected because they could not pass the elementary mental test required for service in the United States Army. When these schools are integrated. They become still. Actually segregated and they become instruments of the production of reproduction and deepening of the cycle of poverty. For example in the Mumford High School of Detroit. Where 70 percent of the students are Negro. In the upper track
which is the only track that can be regarded as educational. 90 to 95 percent of the students are white. So that even in an integrated. Northern High School you're going to have the perpetuation of segregation of the worst kind. This situation is now leading to the demand for apartheid in education originating with the Negro leaders themselves. Many of them are now more interested in running their own schools with their own administrators and teachers than in integration. They had met many of them that the schools might be worse in principle. That they would be better in practice. They would at least be their own. We know that there are more segregated schools now than there were in
1954. The demand for apartheid in so far as it can be heard now. Is undoubtedly the result of the failure of the effort to integrate. It is so unless we are to have complete apartheid a separate negro nation we must suppose that the negro demand for segregated schools is a protest against the failure of brown against the Board of Education. Does not the dam represent an ideal situation. Plans of Chicago and Pittsburgh mount a massive attack on this problem in Pittsburgh. A hundred and twenty million dollars will be spent for the development of five educational parks of 40 acres each five to six thousand students apiece. In Chicago there will be 30 educational parks 20000 students each without reference to cost neighborhood location or the residence of St..
But it is clear that we cannot have any great schools in segregated neighborhoods. We must integrate the neighborhoods or give up neighborhood schools. Pittsburgh and Chicago are chosen the latter course. They have abandoned in principle the neighborhood school. You will note this is a surrender to the principle of segregated neighborhoods. Both superintendents in both cities say that these plans will stop the flight of the whites to suburbs and private schools. There is no reason to suppose that this will happen. What will happen is that we will have all educational negro parks in these cities. Pittsburgh superintendent says after 50 percent everything is lost. The whites will go and go forever. In Chicago 50 percent is now been passed. In
Pittsburgh the percentage of negroes in the Pittsburgh school system is 38 percent. And by 1970 when the first of these parks will be open the population will of passed 50 percent Negro population in the public school. Therefore on his own terms before he begins the Pittsburgh superintendent is defeated. You cannot evade the responsibility to US tax segregated housing especially in the invitation of the Supreme Court has repeatedly issued to Congress to pass federal laws for betting. This leads me from the origin to the import. The most important thing for us to understand is the purpose of possibilities and the limitations of education. Education cannot be used as an alibi to excuse of Beijing of direct attack on
socially good schools in the slums will accomplish very little good schools outside the slums attended by children who live in the slums. Well accomplish very little. The decisive factors in education appear to be such matters as poverty discrimination family background the conditions of daily life all these matters are outside the control of the school. The international study of mathematical achievement which the United States did very poorly shows that these factors and conditions of daily life are much more important than mathematical achievement. And those that are within the control of the school like the size of class or the organization of the school or the special qualifications of the teacher. It has long been evident that a good educational system cannot
alone build a good society. It is clear that a good educational system cannot even provide a good education. The science of doing what it ought to do for the development of the people. A good educational system can help build a good society and it may perhaps minimize some of the bad consequences of a bad society. We cannot shoulder off on education the responsibility to make a good society. We have learned long since that technology is not a substitute for justice. Neither is education or. And the. Remarks from educator Robert Hutchings who believes that within the next 50
years the present view of education in America will undergo radical change. Now the idea of change shifts to minority groups in America. Not just a change in educational opportunities but changes in the majority's social responsibility to the minorities. Mr. Bayard Rustin is a well-known civil rights leader whose fight for peace and civil equality has taken him throughout the United States and to England and Africa. In 1963 Mr. Ruston was the deputy director of the civil rights march on the nation's capital. In the years since he has joined the Civil Rights Movement one of his chief objections has been this. To see to it that the growing sense of moral responsibility among the majority is accompanied by social change for the minority. Here now emphasizing the need for immediate social change is Mr. Bayard Ruston.
Now my friends what I am trying to say is that the moment is now to act. We do not have time these riots which result from the nature of the frozen violence of our society. On not seen as having come about as a result of the frozen violence of the society. And I am here to say that though I opposing vigorously have spoken out against rioting to negroes I will say to white people the rioting that limited degree of fluid violence which we see in our streets is as nothing compared with the inability of the society to move and the frozen violence which that movement fails to dissolve. But the problem is also not junkman a problem as to
whether you can plan for I am sure you can. So long as you recognize that you know your plans. If you do not take into consideration the will and advice of those who you are planning you will be in trouble because the revolve through which we are going is not merely a revolt about housing schools and jobs. I do not believe that rioting has occurred because the schools are that or because there is unemployment nor because there are slums. Man is capable of enduring hardship. What man cannot enjoy is hardship where hope is absent. The rioting occurred because men do not believe that in this society tomorrow or a week from next Thursday or next
year that they will find a job and decent housing and decent schools. The rioting is a failure of the society which has robbed the poor by which I mean the black and white poor by the white pool will not eternally remain in inaction because we have robbed the poor of hope now that kindness may be able to do something about it. They understand that the problem is fundamentally a political one because with all the brains in this nation with all the consideration of what the poor are saying about what should be plan. No plan that is meaningful can be put into operation in the present political atmosphere. The problem is fundamentally a political one. First of all we do not have a noncommunist Democratic left which can become
the political vehicle for social change. The problem with all the marches about Vietnam is that the more people who go into the streets. I don't want to put to bed that as more and more people go into the streets. There is more and more escalation. Why. Because neither the existing political parties can utilize that sentiment against the war. Politically organize it in a meaningful way so that the bigger and bigger the demonstrations get the more and more less affective they become because the problem is a political one. Secondly in regard to the political problem. We in America reject planning except for the private sector of the economy. So what we've become and what we advocate is
democratic socialization for the rich. And rather than the vigil is the focal point. I thank. Where we have to face is that none of the problems can be solved. Unless number one we change our basic priorities and order them. It is not to me more important to go to the moon then to do something about. Holland. It is not to me more talking. To do something about anti-missile missiles on which we are now prepared to spend many more billions of dollars than they tell us we all. Know that is not more important to me than what happens in Watts. And we must
see that the crucial problem of our time is the problem of the underclass and our ability to make it a responsible process by giving it hope and by bringing it in to the working class for a long pole but telling it never has been organized never will be organized will always be destructive and fundamentally more destructive to itself than to anyone else and therefore the only means by which we can do this is bring them into the working process. We have to see that not only must me reorder our priorities but that there must be planning on a national scale and we must see that there must be basic economic problem around which we organize to build the political strength to do this. I believe that we must have full employment. I believe that we can only have full employment with some redefinition of work. I believe that the notion that we
need to have a guaranteed income is a ridiculous notion. I am only for a guaranteed income for those who are too young too old or too sick to work for the rest we can find work. If we are able willing and able. There must be free education. And not only free education but a totally new concept of the nature of education. The government must become the employer of last resort. The government must be the housebuilder of last resort. There must be new towns. It must be totally free medical care for those who need it. We must clear the air and clear our rivers and in the process of doing these socially needed things put men back to work. Let me say in conclusion my friend the paper which I have written is on morality and civil rights. And I would just like to point out to you one of two things this
nation all of us. I do not feel so guilty as some people but I cannot extricate myself from some responsibility. This nation is teaching the poor that they ought to riot lest they get nothing. The way to get money out of Ojo is to go in the spring telling them you're going to have a riot in the summer. In Chicago. Martin Luther King was there for a year and a half and got a piece of paper which the city fathers had not yet recognized. When young Negroes riot because they are too warm in the summer Mr. Daney a week later goes about spending $8 sprinklers. And the young people turn to Dr. King and say You see Dad to
you when your nonviolence roll over. We got ash sprinklers because. The only thing why do you understand is violence. Mr. Randolph and I were chairman of a committee in New York where for four years we attempted to get Negroes upgraded in the police department but we fail as soon as a riot took place in 1964. In 10 days a lieutenant. See the was made captain and the youngsters turned to me and Mr. Randolph and said Why don't you guys come on that the street and blow things up because that's what they did. But what you and I understand this is that they will give character victories throughout this order to point X.. At the point x plus one. There will be a repression in the society. First of all to the negro. But it will affect your civil liberties your political activity. Imagine
if in June July and August of next year there is writing. Imagine that there is rioting in the very cities where the political conventions take place. What is the implication of that for the next. Well it is well known but for you you may not know it is that we are going to get the kind of backlash political representation in the November elections which will shame us all. And even if we get someone who is liberal he will be curtailed by the backlash which many people in this room might even join. If the writing goes beyond a certain point therefore ladies and gentleman I believe that we must not now sit here merely thinking about what is ideal for the next 50 years. But what we begin to do tomorrow at the end of this conference to bring about relief
all by socializing and democratizing a direction that will make it. First of all possible. Under any kind of creative work we can find to put the unemployed back to work to restore it in the ghettos a sense of hope. Now I do not raise the problem in the light because I am fundamentally and first interested in the growth but because unless something is done about the ghetto and the inner city the ultimate effect upon the whole of our democracy is one which I would not choose to contemplate. And I say the important conclusion. That I trust planners will from the beginning associate themselves
with the poor work with the poor. Find out what they want what kind of homes they want to live in what kind of work they want to do for the psychological nature of the revolt to which we are going is that I believe there is time. If we give people the feeling that we are listening to them appreciating them and accepting them as real people. Black. Or white. Civil rights leader Bayard Rustin with I it is on morals concerning minorities and the importance of immediate social change. You're listening to the ninth in this 12 part look at the next 50 years. This week examining the urgent and important social issues in America today and giving attention next to the subject of medicine. The surgeon
general of the United States William Stuart has a warning about what he calls the therapeutic age in medicine. In one remark he cautions that increasing specialization can result in the depersonalization of health services. Dr. Stewart explains to planners his thoughts on medical science and the individual. Here is the surgeon general of the United States William Stuart. The shift that must take place over the next half century is the emergence once again of the individual is the central purpose of medical science. So place a much higher priority on prevention not only of disability and death but of the deviations from the norm that interfere with individual fulfillment. It will in fact alter and enlarge upon the traditional concept of prevention which is essentially a negative concept into a concept of health maintenance and health advancement. The traditional concept of prevention has been to create conditions in which disease
and premature death will not happen. The concept I'm looking toward in the 21st century is to create conditions in which the healthy individual as we have and vision him well happen and will be of the norm. How such a translation will involve new house strategies on a large scale. All of these strategies entailed picking up the pieces of our fragment at present. And putting them together as an integrated whole. We are concerned with the body and mind of every individual and with the social and physical environment in which these many individuals will be living. The first step I shall need to overcome our tunnel vision of death prevention as the primary object of human endeavor. We need to be concerned with not only the number but also the quality of man's years and part of this process we require a new economic orientation. We shall be set shifting from today's sickness insurance to genuine health insurance
and we shall be in building incentives into the system for prevention for maintenance of health for serving the individual rather than his disease parts. And these incentives will need to be apparent to both the provider and the consumer of health services. A major strategy for immediate implementation will be a massive emphasis on in the investment and development health systems that meet the needs of today's dispossessed. Our goal the healthy individual must be applied to all our people. No lesser aspiration. Would be conceivable today. Yet for a great numbers of the poor the wonder cures of our therapeutic age and even the basic preventive measures of 50 years ago are still out of reach. And this imbalance must be redressed before we can hope to soar higher toward 2017. We shall have to devise and put into practice new systems of organizing health services including the facilities and institutions that provide them. Here too for the hospital the great
citadel of cure. Has been considered the heart of the system. But if we envision a system which emphasizes health protection and advancement admission to the hospital will be an admission of failure. The hospital will be the place of last resort essential but no longer dominant. Rather we shall need to invest heavily in the ways of getting preventive and health maintenance services out where the people live. Related to home and school and workplace we need to build flexibility into both the structure and the operation of health care facilities and in planning such facilities we need to consider first of all the people to be served in the patterns of flow of community life. Perhaps most important of all we shall have to reorient our education of health professionals to the new goal of Optimum Health. If their highest object is to serve the healthy individual. They will need an understanding in depth of society and humanity. Only thus will the technical specializations build on top of
this base be fully useful. To accomplish this transition. We shall have to start quickly. For medical education is a long time process. It must chart a course that intersects the trajectory of practice a full decade in the future. Our strategy of Environmental Health must begin but not end with the removal of specific hazard. The first step is to understand that the environment is the habitat of man. We need to appreciate both the potential and limitations of our air land and water. I relate these dissatisfying living. And while we are worrying about pollution we don't also have to worry about noise and light stress and speed and their impact on the healthy man. We need to build new partnerships based on new incentives among governmental bodies in many fields at many levels. And between these in the full range of private enterprise. Fourth it is very clear that no single element of society can bring the healthy man into
being to accomplish all or part of this great translation. Medicine and the health disciplines will have to develop new working in relationships with virtually all of the other fields of knowledge that impinge upon the human being and help to bring out the best in health. Broadly conceived must be a determinant of housing and city planning. Just a spatial patterns of living must be among the determinants of health programs. Well happily the beginnings of these inner locks are becoming visible in conferences like this one. And in the broader concept of planning that are being applied to the problems of the city and also the problems of health. I'm convinced that realizing this vision will be well within our technical capability by the year 2017 whether it is within our societal capability remains to be seen. I think we must try. All the planning we do must be polarized towards the goal of human fulfillment. The enteric old man. However sophisticated the
apparatus of our planning process may be. It must be ultimately be accountable to the individual human being for the critical choices. And these choices must always be of value evaluated against the yardstick of human values.
- Series
- The next fifty years
- Episode
- The Urgent and the Important
- Producing Organization
- WAMU-FM (Radio station : Washington, D.C.)
- Contributing Organization
- University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/500-pg1hnw2z
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- Description
- Series Description
- For series info, see Item 3455. This prog.: The Urgent and the Important...Policy on Social Issues. Robert M. Hutchins, Bayard Rustin
- Date
- 1968-07-01
- Topics
- Social Issues
- Media type
- Sound
- Duration
- 00:30:03
- Credits
-
-
Producing Organization: WAMU-FM (Radio station : Washington, D.C.)
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
University of Maryland
Identifier: 68-26-9 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:29:51
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- Citations
- Chicago: “The next fifty years; The Urgent and the Important,” 1968-07-01, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed October 15, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-pg1hnw2z.
- MLA: “The next fifty years; The Urgent and the Important.” 1968-07-01. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. October 15, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-pg1hnw2z>.
- APA: The next fifty years; The Urgent and the Important. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-pg1hnw2z