Professor Murray B. Levin Publishes Teach Me!

"My students at Egleston taught me about survival and courage, as well as about how it is possible to learn under harsh and hateful conditions and still fulfill dreams." With these eloquent words Professor Murray Levin acknowledges his indebtedness to his students at an alternative school for 80 mostly Latino adolescent dropouts and affirms his dedication and success in teaching the underprivileged of the public educational system.

Murray Levin, Extension School instructor

The road to Egleston Community High School in Jamaica Plain began for Murray Levin more than 50 years ago. After receiving an undergraduate degree from Harvard College and a doctorate from Columbia University, he taught political theory first at Columbia College, then at Boston University (where he was a professor until his retirement in 1991), and finally at the Harvard Extension School. His courses on American Political Thought and Political Consultants in an Age of Illusion have been popular with Extension students, and he has valued the opportunity to teach them. "I have found a second life at Harvard Extension School, where students care and are eager to learn," he says.

In 1993, in addition to his teaching at the Extension School, Professor Levin offered a course at Egleston and, in his own words, "spent three years at the school, teaching, tutoring, counseling, acting as an employment agency, lending a solicitous hand and a few dollars, listening, and grieving with students who lost friends in the senseless slaughter of gang wars and drive-by shootings." His personal account of that teaching experience is recorded in Teach Me!, subtitled Kids Will Learn when Oppression Is the Lesson (Monthly Review Press, 1998).

"Two of my brothers in jail, for the drugs and the guns, and one of them works. I used to sell drugs. Then, after selling drugs, that's when I started getting into drinking and smoking herb. I used to drink every day. My father died from drinking. He was in jail a lot, too." This is the voice of a student Professor Levin taught. His book is based on hundreds of graphic tape-recorded interviews with students and teachers that illuminate how black and Latino adolescents see the world and how their vision affects their life.

Teach Me is also, as Levin puts it, "a record of new ways of teaching that dramatically changed the way many troubled and deprived kids see themselves and the world. The book describes the evolution of a new and successful pedagogy that can be used in a school where teachers are willing."

Professor Levin eschewed the rote memorization method of teaching and encouraged his students to think for themselves by employing the method Plato used: "I taught them what is a cause, what is an effect, what is a system, and why conflict and opposition are necessary to produce change." He always included historical examples like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Ghandi, that resonated with life in the Latino community. His students began to understand relationships and to think systemically, gradually moving on to more sophisticated work.

Despite the fatalism felt by his students, the results of his teaching were gratifying: eight of his 17 students are in college or junior college, one is a policewoman, one is a licensed air-conditioning installer, one is in training as an electrician, and one is a dental assistant. Unfortunately, one of his most brilliant students, an alcoholic, is still on the streets.

The Harvard Extension School is happy to have someone of Professor Levin's experience and dedication teaching for us.