Constance Carroll: Educator Sees Change
Recently, Constance M. Carroll was driving with a friend who mentioned that stoplights were invented by a black man.
That fact, Carroll said, is an example of all that she and millions of others didn’t know because American schools don’t sufficiently teach black history.
“To this day, I am still learning and must be self-taught in terms of African-American contributions,” said Carroll, 45, of Dana Point. “It’s the same with Hispanics. There are huge gaps.” As president of Saddleback College, Carroll’s main academic pursuit is to diversify and broaden the curriculum.
“When you teach Gerard Manley’s ‘Windhover,’ a poem about a bird, why not simultaneously teach ‘I know why the caged bird sings,’ from Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem ‘Sympathy?’ ” she said. “How easy it would be to show cultural parallels, to include comparisons.”
She looked out the window at a group of students milling by the cafeteria. “I wish I had a video camera,” she said. “Look at the diversity here now--old people, Hispanic, African-American and much more.” Carroll prefers the term African-Americans “because this particular population is distinguished by more than race with its physical characteristics,” she said. “It’s really a cultural phenomenon owed to Africa, a history of which we are proud. African-American says two things: It reestablishes ties to Africa and emphasizes being part of America as well.” Carroll said Baltimore, her childhood city, which she described as “wonderful and terrible both,” was a collection of ethnic neighborhoods including German, Dutch, Hungarian, Czech, Slavic, Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian sections, all with their own restaurants.
“Today I can look at a lineup of Easter eggs and tell you which is Hungarian, which is (Polish), because the city celebrated all those heritages,” she said. “But at the same time, what was missing was African-American.” Carroll attended segregated schools, ate in segregated restaurants and lived in segregated ghetto housing. “The city was a sophisticated environment of culture--cosmopolitan and southern in style,” she said. “At the same time, I was severely limited as a young person. Everything was prescribed--where you could sit on the bus, the fountains you could drink at, where you could eat. And the then-called ‘Negro school system’ was poor.”
To supplement the schools, Carroll’s parents, both educators, gave her piano, dance and art lessons in addition to monthlong summer trips to South America and the West Indies. “They were by no means rich,” said Carroll, who was an only child. “But one thing about segregation is you didn’t need much money because there wasn’t much you could do. So my parents saved their money and spent it on these opportunities.” Now Carroll wants students to understand their current world and the recent past. “I’m concerned about how little students know about even the Persian Gulf and the creation of Israel,” she said. “There’s a movement afoot to change things, and I want to be part of it.”
