Chapter 4: No More Broken Window: Transforming the Lives of Urban School Children

My journey to selecting James HeHerndon’s (1968) book The Way It Spozed To Be begins with my absence during the first few sessions of class, as I was recovering from a recent surgery and could not drive to Oxford, Ohio, located about an hour from my home in Cincinnati. During my absence the group was presented with a list of curriculum scholars from which we could select an author. Had I been in class I am sure I might have selected a well-known scholar. On my preferred list were John Goodlad, Jonathan Kozol, Joseph Schwab, and Herbert Kohl. But since I am an African American scholar in what I hope is the final year of my doctoral studies in educational leadership, I began to explore the selection of an African American writer. Ultimately, my selection of Herndon was fueled by the notion that historically, the work of African American scholars suffers from an ongoing marginalization.