MOULTRIE, Ga. — The Society of Professors of Education bestowed the 2019 Outstanding Book Award upon “Becoming an African American Progressive Educator: Narratives from 1940s Black Progressive High Schools,” an anthology compiled by Dr. Craig Kridel, curator of the Museum of Education.

Though Kridel is behind the book’s overall creation, he did not write its three comprised stories. That credit belongs to three groups of teachers, one of which was from the Moultrie High School for Negro Youth.

“When it was nominated for the award, I made the case that really I was an editor for the outstanding work that was being done by these teachers back in the ’40s. And the reviewers acknowledged that,” Kridel said.

According to him, their response was “Thanks, Kridel,” but we already know these teachers are the ones who deserve the award.

Those teacher groups came from three different schools: Moultrie High School for Negro Youth, Lincoln High School in Tallahassee, Florida, and Booker T. Washington High School in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

The three schools were part of the Secondary School Study, a program “conducted between 1940 and 1946 to encourage teachers at 17 select African American high schools in the American Southeast to further develop their administrative, curricular, and instructional practices.”

Each school was required to send reports back on progresses and observations during the study. Kridel said reports back then were filled with the typical “We did this…” and “Wasn’t that wonderful” phrases, which led teachers to try something different.

In honoring the definition of progressive, which is favoring or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas, Moultrie High School for Negro Youth took charge.

 “Back in 1946, the Moultrie High School teachers decided the way to best portray the wonderful things that were occurring at this progressive, experimental school was to show it through the eyes of a first year teacher,” Kridel said. “It was much different from these kinds of stereotypical and (I would say) rather dreary school reports that a number of the progressive schools did in the 1940s.”

And thus “Miss Parker: The New Teacher,” a creative nonfiction story about a progressive teacher’s first year experience, was born. Kridel said one of the reasons Moultrie’s story specifically resonated with the reviewers was its reference to early First Year Teacher research.

First Year Teacher research focuses on the trials and tribulations of first year teachers, “Miss Parker: The New Teacher’s” main theme.

“It brings insight for all educators of today, working with youth in a very different time, but were still confronting many of the same dilemmas and issues about making school meaningful,” he said.

But though the teachers are finally receiving their recognition, it comes 73 years later, something Kridel could only call tragic.

“Progressive education was a concept that would have brought negative attention to them,” Kridel said. “While they were not recognized, which is tragic, what was even more tragic was the fact that they didn’t want the attention because they were fearful of a white racist aristocracy that would cause them great harm.”

But from tragedy, gold was still struck by way of the school’s former students who benefitted from those progressive practices. Alumnus of the 1947 class, Odessa Hooker said she’s glad the teachers are finally getting recognition.

In her words, “They deserved it and we (the students) were very fortunate.”

Hooker said she and the other students were fortunate when Principal William Dennis and the wave of progressive teachers came into their lives, as previous educators lacked emphasis on black students’ education.

“Until he came, all of our books were hand-me-downs from the white schools and so were uniforms,” she said. “When Mr. Dennis came things began to change. He knew the white superintendent really didn’t care what was going on at our school, so our teachers taught us black history (instead).”

Being a living result of the 1940s progressive educations some black schools received, Kridel interviewed Hooker in the process of compiling his anthology. In doing so, he sent her a copy of “Miss Parker,” which after reading, struck in Hooker a realization.

“I became a teacher and taught all the way from Head Start all the way to the University of Cincinnati,” she said. “I could see a lot of my programs—the way I taught—(and) I could see a lot of teachers, recall the things that they had done and the way they had taught (its influence).”

She wasn’t Kridel’s only subject for Moultrie. He also interviewed Dale Williams, an alumnus of William Bryant High School which was formerly Moultrie High School for Negro Youth.

Williams said the recognition showed the importance of education to black children during that time, but also shows how he thinks the teachers may feel about today.

“Progress since that period of time is not what it should have been,” Williams said. “(And) a lot of it has to do with how slow people are accepting of change.”

For Williams, it’s important for the community and educators to look back on how black children were educated. Comparing it to now, might show some discrepancies, according to him.

“At that time during the ’40s, the emphasis was placed on the importance of education. I think that it’s doubly important that emphasis was placed on educating black children,” he said. “(But) I don’t think that is emphasized as much now as it was during that time.”

Regardless, he is proud those who took risks in the name of educating black children, and his community, are getting their due recognition.

To read “Becoming an African American Progressive Educator: Narratives from 1940s Progressive Black Progressive High Schools,” visit http://museumofeducation.info/narratives.pdf. It includes “Miss Parker: The New Teacher,” “The Evolution of Susan Prim” from Lincoln High School, “High School Was Like This” from Booker T. Washington High School and notes from Kridel.