Press Clippings

These are excerpts from news publications... The Life and Times of Jerry Blumengarten

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS - June 25, 1972

"On the junior high level, Brooklyn's Berriman JHS 64 track squad was named co-champion in the New York City Track and Field Championships. Jerry Armour, the school policeman, and teachers Tony Mazza and Jerry Blumengarten coached the team which was undefeated in winning the district, borough and city crowns. The best athletes from 70 schools throughout the city participated (Randall's Island)when Berriman was named co- champion with JHS 101 of the Bronx. It was quite an accomplishment..." Bill Travers

NEW YORK POST -June 23, 1973

"Building Track is His Field"

Prediction: East New York, Thomas Jefferson and South Shore will soon rank with the top track teams in the PSAL. Predictor: Jerry Blumengarten, track commissioner for the junior high and intermediate schools in District 19 in Brooklyn. "I can definitely see it happening, says Blumengarten, who just completed his first year in the newly created position. "The past two years our district has produced the city's junior high school champion and most of the boys will go to these high schools. "The talent in this district (East New York) is tremendous with a lot still untapped."

...Blumengarten takes pride in another aspect of the District 19 program. "There are girls' teams too." he says. "And you know I think they have taken a bigger interest in it than the fellows." ...

LEARNING IN NEW YORK - Published by the City School District of the City of New York - February 1975

"Career Education is not a new subject area. Instead it is a direction educators are moving in with an effort to approach the already existing curriculum from a new perspective... Mr. Blumengarten has enhanced the eighth grade urban studies curriculum by doing extensive research and developing lesson guides designed to provide social studies teachers with a frame-work around which they can plan exciting lessons in neighborhood-based urban studies. "I wanted my students to find out about their community as a microcosm of the urban situation, "said Mr. Blumengarten. Within this community-based approach to the teaching of urban studies, I have included career education." ...

NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS - April 23, 1977

"..At Junior High School 166 in Brooklyn, social studies teacher Jerry Blumengarten is writing "Survival Skills," a curriculum designed to give students essential information they may, surprisingly, have trouble picking up on their own - such as how to use public transportation or communicate by telephone. These various activities have one thing in common. They are all taking place with the active encouragement and support of a small, little known organization with the inviting name of Open Doors. The name, explains the organization's director, Frances Low, symbolizes the opening up of contacts between schools and the outside business world."...

NEW YORK TEACHER - November 16, 1980

In photo above, Isabelle Gorayeb of John Dewey HS gestures emphatically as she speaks to teachers attending a workshop on "The Big Apple as Your English Language Arts Classroom." The workshop was one of several presented at the Fall Institute. Looking on are the other leaders of the workshop from left to right, Jerry Blumengarten, IS 364, Brooklyn teacher Howard Friedman of City-as-School, who served as moderator, and Romayne Knapp of Open Doors/Economic Development Council.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS - May 9, 1982

Can Schools Teach Values if the Parents Can't?

..."In the early days, the citizenship course was designed to teach civics, to instill American democratic values in newly arrived immigrants," Salow says. "Today, we believe that many of the young people no longer ascribe to many of the American and democratic values. So we are trying to instill the same values, but not in the same way."

Salow, who wrote the new course in 30 days with Public School 9 Assistant Principal Marvin Polansky and Jerry Blumengarten, a teacher at Junior High School 166, both Brooklyn, says the program was carefully drawn up to avoid the kind of controversy that has been associated with other attempts to instill a set of values in students..."

LOS ANGELES TIMES - June 4, 1982 (Front Page!)

N.Y. Fights Crime by Teaching Ethics - Civility 101: Pupils Learn How to Be Good Citizens

..."Confronted by escalating juvenile crime, vandalism and weapons possession-and a sense that many children are unfamiliar with basic principles of ethics-New York public school officials have launched an experimental program to revive some old-fashioned values. "It's a major effort to change the climate of life in our schools and in New York City," said Charlotte Frank, curriculum chief for the Board of Education. "The question," said Chancellor Frank J. Macchiarola, the school system's chief administrator, "is how do the schools respond to the loss of a sense of community in this society?...

"These aren't just New York City school problems," said Elliot Salow, the citizenship program's chief author. "These are societal problems, nationwide problems."

"It's a question of values," said Blumengarten, the teacher at Junior High 364. "People get scared when they hear the word values used in a public school. We're not telling kids what their values ought to be; we're asking them to think about what their values actually are."

Blumengarten's students, a multiracial group drawn from a massive middle-income apartment complex and a neighboring slum, had little difficulty pinpointing some of the things they value: clean streets, safety from muggers, functioning subway trains...

Later, after the school's harsh electronic bell had sounded and sent the eighth grade scrambling outside for lunch, Blumengarten recalled the exchange and smiled. "You don't get that in textbooks," he said.

THE EAST NEW YORKER "Brooklyn's Community Voice" December 12, 1986

Baptist Medical Center of New York, a community hospital serving both Brooklyn and Queens is offering its facility and staff as a training site for our community youth. Two unique programs are in full operation, under the direction of Mrs. Rita Augugliaro, Director of Volunteer Services and Community Relations. Sixty five Health Career Junior High School students from I.S. #218, are programmed at BMC twice a week, with teacher liaisons Larry Brauner, Tony Speranza and Jerry Blumengarten, to give "hands-on" experience in Acute Care Division, Ancillary Departments and Skilled Nursing Facility..."

MENTIONS

Technology Offers Opportunities, Challenges for Substitute Teachers - US News and World Report