Citizenship, Democratic and American-ness Lessons at:

Woodrow Wilson High School, Camden, New Jersey

For my mini-Internship project for Civics, Citizenship and Social Education class,

I chose to give a series of lessons focusing on the topics of democracy, citizenship and

American-ness. The lessons were given by me prior to the mid-term elections in 2006.

The topics of the five lessons were the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the

Pledge of Allegiance, the Political Spectrum, and “Our Country/Our Truck.” Though my

students are generally 11th grade students ranging from the ages of 16-18, and either

Hispanic or black, these topics were outside their usual train of thought. And in efforts to

make these matters more familiar to my minority students who are indeed American

citizens, teaching these lessons would be beneficial. But before I explain my classroom

results, I thought it would make sense to include a background of the city in which they

live, and the school, Woodrow Wilson High School.

Camden, NJ was founded by English settlers in the early 1600’s and is located

directly across Philadelphia, PA on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River. Camden

was home to the literary legend Walt Whitman and, in fact, his body is buried in

Evergreen Cemetery on Mt. Ephraim Avenue.

This small city since the 1900’s, was known country-wide for its industrial might.

During World War I and World War II, Camden was one of the nation’s most productive

cities in terms of shipbuilding.1 The Fairview section of the city was settled and designed

during World War I specifically for the city’s shipbuilders. Camden was home to

manufacturing giants such as RCA-Victor and Campbell’s Soup Company. Not only was

1
Howard Gillette, “Howard Gillette’s New Book About Camden, NJ”
<http://historiccamdencounty.com/ccnews113.shtml>
this city itself home to great industry, but largely, the employees of these industrial

companies were residents of Camden. Prior to the 1960’s, the demographic of Camden

was vastly different from the Camden of today. Camden had whole sections of Italians,

Polish, German immigrants and WASPs, along with African American areas as well. In

fact to this day, the Whitman Park section of the city still is called “Polak Town”, after

the sizeable population of Polish American residents who lived there.

After World War II, the second “Great Migration” of African Americans from the

South began to settle in Northern cities like Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. Like

other northern industrial cities, tiny Camden also became home to migrating African

Americans.

Moving ahead to the Vietnam War era to the present, Camden had become an

embodiment of the “white flight” phenomena that occurred in many of the nation’s

industry based areas.2 Many white families began to move to suburban areas, and, in their

place, more African American and Hispanic families moved in. In general, the more

educated and affluent families, both white and black, left the city and comparatively

speaking, less educated, poorer masses began to settle in larger numbers.

During the 1960’s and 70’s Camden, had experienced its share of public

disturbances and riots. One that many view as the city’s watershed moments took place in

1971, when two white police officers, during traffic stop involving a Puerto Rican man,

severely beat the man and put him in the hospital in critical condition. In response,

2
Howard Gillette, “Howard Gillette’s New Book About Camden, NJ”
<http://historiccamdencounty.com/ccnews113.shtml>
residents reacted by rioting; ultimately destroying their community. Shops were looted

and torched, and the city burned for three days. 3

Following the 1970’s, with the sustained exodus of the educated tax base to

suburban areas, a sharp decline of industrial employment occurred. And in the 1980’s,

with the steady increase of drug distribution and abuse, especially in the form of crack-

cocaine, and alcohol abuse, the city of Camden has been on a downward spiral for the

past thirty years. The overall erosion of Camden’s quality of life had been recognized and

reaffirmed in the Novembers of both 2004 and 2005 when Morgan Quitno, a small

publishing and research company based in Lawrence, Kansas named Camden, New

Jersey the Most Dangerous City in both years. This November, Camden relinquished this

dubious distinction to St. Louis, Missouri by being named as the nation’s fifth Most

Dangerous City.4

In the midst of the apparent morass and depression within the city, Camden’s

education system attempts to educate the children. By far New Jersey’s largest school

district south of Newark, the Camden Board of Education oversees thirty-three

educational institutions serving close to 16,000 students. Because the city is without a

viable tax base, a Camden City school qualifies for Abbott classification. The state pays a

whopping $14,437 per student toward their education in the city’s schools. According to

the New Jersey Municipal Data Book of 2004, the average per capita income per

household in Camden is $9,815, and the median income is $23,000 dollars. With an

overall population of about 70,000, there are about 27,000 residents living in poverty.5

3
Jim Walsh, “Camden, Area Experience Turmoil, Hope,” Courier Post, ed.
http://www.courierpostonline.com/125anniversary/camden.html
4
Scott Morgan, “America’s Safest (and Most Dangerous) Cities,” Morgan Quitno, ed. 30 Oct. 2006
<http:www.morganquitno.com/safecity.htm>
5
“New Jersey Municipal Data Book,” Information Publications 2004, ed. Pg 71
The Wall Street Journal reported in August of 2006 that, Camden in 2005 had a poverty

rate of 44%, the highest level among small-to-midsize cities.6 In terms of educational

attainment, only about 51% of city residents graduated high school and only 5.4% have

bachelor’s degrees.

On the east side of the city, one of the Camden’s six high schools sits. At 3100

Federal Street, Woodrow Wilson High School has been located since its building in 1929.

Once attended by all white students, the school first became integrated in 1952, prior to

the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case.

Today, the school student body is very ethnically diverse. The demographic data

of the school suggests it has about 47% black, 49% Hispanic, 3%, Asian, and 2% white

students. With a near equal amount of black teachers to white teachers, and a few Asian

and Hispanic teachers, the teaching staff is also very diverse.

Only about 51% of student’s household is English spoken primarily, with 47% of

households speaking Spanish primarily, 2% speaking Vietnamese and 1% speaking

Cambodian.

Now being better acquainted with the environment in which these students live

and learn, from what we’ve learned in this class, it should be more understandable that

thoughts of citizenship, democracy, and American-ness would not be on these students

minds. But I did, however, introduce these issues to my students in my US History II

class.

The methodology employed to illicit their opinions and viewpoint was almost

entirely Socratic with the teacher asking students questions and them giving the answers.

6
Christopher Conkey, “Snapshot of America: Who’s Richest, Who’s Poorest and Where the Single Men
Are,” Wall Street Journal [New York], 30 August 2006: D2
I assured them that there were no right/wrong answers, and that I only wanted to hear

their opinions. Prior to this I had set the desks in a circular fashion so as to ensure

maximum visibility and participation.

My experience facilitating these lessons has been a truly rewarding one. I’ve

become more comfortable relinquishing control of the classroom, and from time to time,

giving power to students. I find they listen to each other more me, and are more interested

what other students think and believe. Though they are encouraged to contribute during

lessons in which I am in control, when I became the listener and they the teachers, the

class was much more alive and engaged. I loved teaching these lessons and look forward

to including Socratic methods in future and teaching these lessons next year.