Chapter 2
WHAT'S HAPPENING:
The Sociology of Conflict
The attempt to review and revitalize our roles as educators will not take us very far if we fail to come to grips with the dynamics of cultural change. Nearly all our basic institutions, schools includedare caught up in seemingly endless crises. To ignore this phenomenon or to accept simplistic explanations, such as "our problems are caused by outside agitators," makes it likely that we will be driven from the field before we have a chance to show how humane and flexible we really are.
In trying to figure out what's going on, we can make the assumption that everybody is part of the system, even those who wish to change it. The immediate advantage of this assumption is that it legitimizes all the forces present. Our attention, thus, can focus on problems, not villains. We begin to see that there is a pattern of conflict not a conspiracy which is threatening to tear our society to pieces.
Traditionally, it has been possible to divide society up into two basic groups the A's and the B's.
The A-group is the historically dominant group. It holds the established, often legalized power. It makes and enforces the rules for its own members and those of the B-group.
The B-group is the traditionally subordinate group. Its members tend to be dependent and powerless. Any real power they might possess is considered illegitimate by the A-group and therefore has to be hidden or disguised.
In the traditional school situation, for instance, teachers and administrators comprise the A-group. They tell the studentsthe B's-where they should go and what they should do. Rules cover not only educational matters such as what classes one attends or what materials are required, but also personal processes such as where and when one eats or goes to the bathroom, or under what conditions peers might talk to each other. There is no authentic student power in this kind of schooL Student government is really a fiction, the purpose of which is to give students practice with certain political forms.
But things are changing. Minority or oppressed groups are no longer content to be submissive. The poor, the female, the black, the Army private, the student, all are unwilling to accept second-class citizenship no matter how the A-group rationalizes it.
The B-group members want to structure and direct their own lives; and they have discovered a
source of power for making their demands real, not just rhetorical. Like the trade unionists of the nineteenth century, and the emerging nation states of the post-World War II period, the B's are realizing that their true power is in each other. As isolated groups they have only the power to destroy. Together, they have power to initiate action in directions compatible with their own goals.
The dominant groups have long understood the potency of united effort. What is known as "the weight of society" is nothing more than the various A-groups pulling together. Cooperative establishment power over the years has had little difficulty in pushing back the incessant revolts of individual B-groups. But facing a united front is something else again. The A's have had to resort to new strategies for maintaining their dominant position. This is the essence of the struggle that threatens to destroy the major institutions of our society. Nowhere is the pattern clearer than in the realm of urban education.
Students more and more are refusing to play a passive, dumb role. They want to have a say in how the educative process will unfold in their schools. They want to help shape the rules that will govern their behavior.
To get action on their demands, the students are uniting with each other, with civil rights groups, with political groups. They find causes to participate in as a way of helping themselves to power.
How the teachers and administration respond to the student activism determines, as much as anything else, whether the school climate will be one of growth or one of crisis. If these A-group forces view the new student behavior as threatening, if they employ traditional dominant strategies, there will be trouble.
For instance, a classic A-group response is to ignore the student demands. I remember one high school principal who not only refused to meet with the students, he even had a big neon sign hanging over the door to his office. This man could push a button and the sign would light up: PRINCIPAL IN CONFERENCE. When the light was on, nobody dared go in that door. The principal was sitting in his office with the sign turned on and the school was falling down all around him.
Another strategy of those in charge is to listen to the subordinate group demands, to acknowledge their legitimacy, and then do nothing about them. The danger here is that a group kept waiting for action on its just demands eventuallyout of rage comes to expect satisfaction plus interest. At the moment of crisis, when it is no longer possible to delay things, the authorities express willingness to make good on the original demands. When they discover that the agitating group has upped its demands, the dominant group often charges that "the faith has been broken."
A more aggressive dominant group tactic is to try to get the subordinate group to lose hold of its goals. This is especially effective with inexperienced groups such as student organizations. In one school, for example, students were asking to share in the decision-making processes. The principal cynically announced to the press that the students wanted "to take the place over." Some of the youngsters, frustrated because no one would negotiate with them, agreed: "Yes, maybe we will take charge here."
Of course that was an impossible threat. The students had to lose now that their legitimate position was gone. But having a losing cause didn't mean they wouldn't fight. To save face they might consider calling the principal's hand, trying for a physical take-over. Thus, while the administration merely wanted to make the students appear ridiculous and thereby impotent, in reality it set the fuse for an explosion.
Beyond such more or less subtle manipulations, the dominant group can rely upon the traditional show of force. By equating any show of student activism with some negative group, educators have justified drastic solutions such as arbitrary expulsion or police-type controls. They fail to realize that the root causes of student dissent are never touched by brute force. What often results is an increased determination of the students to match the physical force. One reaps what one sows.
All across the country we can see what happens when the established school power structure uses traditional strategies in confronting the new posture of the students. Enough schools have been shut down, enough violence has occurred, to convince us that some nontraditional processes ought to be tried.
At one high school where I was principal, for instance, we instituted an "open door" policy. You didn't have to go through ten secretaries to see the principal. The result was amusing if predictable. Some of the vice-principals complained, "Marcus, you shouldn't have the department heads m your office all the time."
The department heads said, "Marcus, don't let the teachers in here so much."
And the teachers were upset: "We can't get in to see you because you let those kids in whenever they want."
There seems to be an almost natural inclination for people to sort out their fellows as A's or B's even though this kind of discrimination sets up the kind of destructive confrontations almost everyone abhors. To reverse the process requires daring techniques. For instance, a series of retreats was held in Philadelphia. Educators, students, and community people met on neutral ground for two- or three-day periods. It was hoped that "controlled confrontations" would lead to "seeing yourself as others see you." A new self-awareness might lead to a new way of perceiving others and their own legitimate concerns.
The results were quite explosive because people didn't always like the picture they got of themselves. But they had a choice. They could say: "I saw myself and what I saw wasn't good. I saw a big, fat bigot in all his glory. Now I'm going to do something about that."
But if an individual had such a large investment in bigotry, he might not be able to change. In this case, the abrasive, interpersonal confrontation can only make a person angry. Some people at the retreats learned that there was a wide discrepancy between the democratic beliefs they espoused and the forces that actually controlled the way they behaved. Deep down inside, some people had real hatred and contempt for black people and for students. Yet, when their attitudes came out, they hollered and protested. It was like when, in olden days, emperors killed the messengers who brought bad news. Many people blamed the retreats for their anxiety and anger.
The retreats tried to give a person (or group) a clearer self-image. Perhaps more difficult is for an individual or group to perceive others honestly. Many ethnic or religious groups, for instance, have long used exclusiveness in creating clubs and political power bases. Yet, the notion of Black Power was considered outrageous and dangerous.
Beyond hypocrisy, however, is the simple truth that it's hard to switch places, to get inside someone else's skin. This was the problem confronting a group of educators, meeting in a symposium, who were trying to understand the gang process which in Philadelphia had resulted in the deaths of more thanfifty children in a single year. The Office of Community Affairs, which sponsored the symposiums realized that fear was the key. But how does one convey what a child feels when he has been marked by one of the gangs? What does the child experience when he is told, "We're going to get you," and he doesn't know whether it will happen on the stairs, in the lavatory, or waiting for the bus after school. But when the child's parent calls the school and says to the principal, "My child is not coming to school because he is afraid of the gang," the principal is likely to respond: "You send him in. Nothing is going to happen."
The symposium members---Principals, counselors, administrators'---where familiar with the statistics. But it was all abstract, academic, unreal.
To communicate the terror of gangs we chose a new communications medium---guerrilla theater. We decided to produce a simulated gang assault on the conference room. The "armed" confrontation was staged by members of the Young Great Society, a group of ex-gang members who have worked to redirect gang behavior.
The "shoot-out" was realistic. For a few moments there was real fear in the room. Those of us who knew what was happening stood in predetermined places ready to protect the actors from any of the participants who might have made heroic gestures.
The participants--- having recovered from their shock, stayed and worked and learned as never before. Even hardened gang workers, who often had firsthand contact with violence, were able to see the problems in a new way. Of course, there had been a risk participants might have been severely frightened. They might have been outraged. But such responses could hardly match the reality of the situation in the community which had lost so many of its youth while outsiders talked about "them."
It is not necessary, of course, to resort to such drastic techniques for getting people together. Sometimes it takes nothing more than listening carefully.
It all comes down to this: those with the established power have somehow got to understand the proper limits of what they have. They must come to respect the legitimate power of those who have recently acquired it. In the nonadversary model, it is easy to see that one group's gain in power doesn't necessarily mean another group's loss. And in the cooperative model, one group's gain can be a plus for all.
Experience shows, however, that the move from conflict to cooperation generally requires mediation. Or just plain help. We need mature peopleadministrators, teachers, students, parentswho can sometunes get away from whatever vested interest they have, to find a place where they can help all groups perceive the legitimate concerns all around.
And of course, such brokering of good will is better done before the crisis breaks out. Humpty-Dumpty is harder to put back together again after the fall. In this light, the fall is sad because each crisis is really a missed opportunity.
And then there are near-misses. I once received a call from the principal of one of our city's more prestigious high schools. This was a place proud of its tradition for intellectual exploration.
"Marcus," said the principal, obviously in a panic,
"there are some Black Panthers outside my office."
"What do they want?" I asked
.
"I don't know," she whispered. "What should I do?"
"Invite them in," I suggested. "Ask them what they
want. Treat them as if they were Pink Panthers."
In a few minutes she called back. The Panthers
wanted to address her students as part of the special
assembly to honor a great martyred American.
"Shall I let them speak?" she asked.
"You're the principal."
She decided to let the gentlemen speak. The students were fascinated, and that was that. Except, a few days later when members of the black community caine up to the school to determine if the school had given sufficient emphasis to the significance of the day, the principal was able to say, "Why, I had some Black Panthers in here telling it like it was to my students."
