Lessons from the League School
by Jason Gorbel

I enjoy teaching social studies with a particular preference for aviation history. In my classroom social studies themes found their way into other subject areas. One multiplication lesson incorporated the first leaps of the Wright Flyer and a biography of Amelia Earhart launched a month of language arts activities. My propensity for historical analogy was in the mind of the League School administration when I was asked to develop and teach a social studies program for the entire student body. League is a school for children with a classification of serious emotional disturbances who are too impaired to have succeeded in Board of Education schools.

After a few sweaty days clearing out a neglected storage room in the school’s basement, I decorated the walls with presidents, civil rights leaders, explorers, maps and, of course, airplanes. The social studies department had a classroom now. Our individualized curriculum was theme oriented and the administration gave me the freedom to choose such a theme, but how was I to make the students care about their history? Where was I to start?

From the countless heroes of American history, the victories of our nation’s first African-American fighter pilots, the Tuskegee Airmen, are of paramount inspiration to me. My heart would almost race when I imagined myself soaring along with them at the controls of one of their famous red-tailed Mustangs. If I could feel it, then so could my students. I decided to include Airmen’s story among the first themes I taught.

As an experienced teacher, I knew making the information relevant to the students’ lives would ensure their involvement. The Tuskegee pilots’ plight was a dual war against prejudice on the ground and the German Air Force in the sky. Discrimination was an obstacle many of my students faced daily and courage under fire was called for in combat much as it is growing up in an often hostile urban environment. The idea of being stifled by low societal expectations was also something they understood well and here were people who, generations before had transcended the limits others had imposed upon them. These pilots’ exploits did more than protect American bombers en route to axis targets; they provided our country with evidence that given opportunities, African-Americans could excel at far more than the menial pursuits generally afforded them.

One morning my students were greeted with something other than a textbook or a chalkboard full of rote facts. A poster of Tuskegee Airman C. D. Lester’s red-tailed P-51 Mustang in pursuit of a burning Nazi warplane hung over the chalkboard. Upon entering the classroom, the students’ attention was caught by the colorful illustration. When they read aloud I had written below, “What would a blonde German fighter pilot who believed that he was a Superman have thought if he knew it was an African-American who had bested him in the air?” A lively discussion ensued.

Replies included, “What made him think he was better?” They remained silent—a rare pleasure—as I explained Hitler’s Germany.

My question, “How did it feel to return to America, the country you had fought for, and find many doors of opportunity still closed to you because of the color of your skin?” spawned debate about issues of segregation and civil rights.

History provides an endless and ever expanding supply of heroes, villains and struggles to grab any student’s imagination. I look forward to many years of baiting my students with such elements and reeling them in before they even realize they are learning history from the basement.#

Jason Gorbel, MSEd is a social studies teacher in Brooklyn’s League School.

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