History Teacher Still Subject of Diverse Reaction

Newport Beach history teacher Angela Newman’s voice mail has been full of messages every day, ever since the day last month when she walked into school and was greeted by a co-worker: “I don’t care what those people say about you. . . .”

Newman, the first black teacher in recent memory at largely white Newport Harbor High, had been prepared for responses to her candor in a Times profile about the way she teaches history. That includes an emphasis on cultural diversity and an African American perspective on many historical events. After all, the combination of hot-button topics--history, race, education and children--made community reaction inevitable.

But she did not foresee the strength and enduring nature of the tempest.

She arrived at work two days after the article was published to find she had been denounced before the school board and as part of a “postmodernist effort to destroy what is great about America” by a member of the conservative group Principles over Politics.

“Strong nations, strong societies are not multicultural. They are monocultural,” Fountain Valley resident Bruce Crawford told the board.

Also at the school board meeting was local history buff George Grupe. Grupe did not address the issue of multiculturalism but said he abhors the textbooks used by the district, on the grounds that they denigrate national heroes such as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Newman has taught her students that Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves, but also told them about his speeches stating that he did not believe blacks to be equal to whites or believe that the races should live together.

What ensued after the board meeting was a daily deluge of stories and letters in local papers that continues to this day. And 25 days after the profile appeared, the voice mail is still full every day.

Newman received letters of support from as far away as Tampa, Fla., and conservative literature that compares South Africa’s first black president, Nelson Mandela, to Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi and urges blacks to call themselves Negroes. Also, former Assemblyman Gil Ferguson, now with Principle over Politics, is seeking to set up a debate about multiculturalism in which his group would face off against Newman and school officials.

An independent film company sent her a movie it made about Lincoln, which included his anti-black statements. The Anti-Defamation League has offered its services for her upcoming class unit on the Holocaust.

A sprinkling of letters is from other teachers and college professors. The chair of UC Irvine’s history department wrote complimenting Principal Bob Boise for hiring her, and said all the finest high schools and colleges in the country teach history as it is taught at Newport Harbor.

“Too frequently history is a repository of unimaginative teachers who can only tell the same old hallowed stories about the rich and the famous, and the dates of battles and kings,” wrote department Chair Steven Topik. “It is refreshing to see Miss Newman and Newport Harbor take a progressive approach to history.”

Numerous parents have called to express their support, Boise said, offering to speak before the school board or write to district officials on Newman’s behalf.

“I haven’t had a single person call and say, ‘I’d like to move my kid out of Angela Newman’s class,’ but I’ve had dozens call to say, ‘She’s the best teacher my child has,’ ” Boise said.

The broader Newport community also has been supportive, he said, and teachers and students at the school have taken a vehement stance on her side.

During one newspaper interview, 15 of Newman’s colleagues marched in to say that if there is a problem with the way she teaches, then there is a problem with the way they do too.

But the faculty also are flabbergasted by the furor. From art to English literature, teacher after teacher said, a multicultural perspective imbues all they do.

“As we become a multicultural society, our kids are going to be entering a work force with many different cultural perspectives,” said history teacher Philip D’Agostino. “We’re trying to grapple with changes and shifts in demographics. While I think fear about those changes is understandable, that’s what education is for.”

Other teachers also said that they weave information about non-European cultures into the warp and weft of their lessons. Some of the lessons, such as those about Lincoln, slavery or the Civil War, show America in a dim light.

“The ancient Greeks knew that all heroes had flaws,” said English teacher Angela Tyson. “When I teach Julius Caesar or Antigone or Macbeth I teach that these were great people but who were flawed.

“The problem with America is that we want perfect heroes.”

Grupe said Friday that he never suggested the board adopt a monocultural approach to history and that the ensuing articles in the local papers unfairly implied a racist attitude.

“I don’t care if they teach multiculturalism. I don’t care if they teach African American history as long as the material is accurate.”

Crawford could not be reached for comment.

Newman has allowed only the barest of discussions about her prominence in the news during class. Her style has not changed since the uproar, nor have her goals for her class. “What I want is for my students to think,” she said. “I am giving my students the tools to succeed in life.”

As for Abraham Lincoln?

“I’m not saying that he’s not a hero,” Newman said. “But we don’t want our kids to think of our founding fathers as gods. We want them to see them as true human beings who had complex issues to deal with.”