red to as "boys" and "girls." Their teen years were a moratorium between childhood and adulthood.
During these pre-Sputnik years, the school was very orderly. The hallways glistened, and students were rarely late to class. The level of achievement was high, and teaching positions at Hamilton High were considered quite desirable. The school day was short, only 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., but students were expected to complete about two hours of homework each evening. Students showed deference to the teachers, and the younger staff respected the senior staff. Department heads had reduced teaching assignments, private offices, and phones from which to phone parents. A strict dress code distinguished students from teachers, and social distance was maintained (Grant, 1988, p. 18).
The school was quite stable during its early, post-war time period. There was consensus among the community, principal, and faculty regarding the purposes of the school--to get the children into good colleges and maintain competitive athletic teams. The school earned a strong academic reputation because it attracted motivated, college-bound students whom the more qualified teachers wanted to teach. The attractive campus appealed to both groups. The principal ran a tight ship, and his decisions regarding rules, hiring, and expelling were seldom questioned.
By 1960 there were only two black students among the 350 students who graduated that year.
Grant terms the years between 1966 and 1971 the "Deconstruction of the Old World" (Grant, 1988, p. 24). Great societal forces were pushing for desegregation, and few teachers or schools were prepared for such changes. The black students increased in number, and tensions mounted. The white students did not know how to socialize with the blacks, and the teachers did not know how to deal with impudent lack of respect for authority. One black student complained that in a social studies class if the word ...