When he learned that Rev. Jesse Jackson had an extramarital affair and fathered a child out of wedlock, 18-year-old Miles Putnam said it felt as though he had been punched in the stomach.
“I said, `Oh no, not another sex scandal,'” said Putnam, a senior at Oak Park-River Forest High School in Oak Park. “Especially after the Clinton scandal, I was really surprised initially, then disappointed.”
Even growing up in a time when scandals among public figures seem common, students like Putman feel disillusioned by Jackson’s indiscretion.
Jackson’s message of personal responsibility was often directed to students, and some are struggling with what to make of the man they’ve discussed in classes ranging from American history to political science.
And with Black History Month quickly approaching, the scandal has left some academics, with students from the grade-school to graduate-school levels, grappling with how to approach the issue in the classroom.
Leroy Bryant, chairman of the History, Philosophy and Political Science Department at Chicago State University, said he would teach this next chapter in Jackson’s history like anything else.
“What he has done with his life cannot be overshadowed by this one incident, but it has to be mentioned when we teach him,” Bryant said. “At this level, even if [instructors] don’t bring it up, someone will. It should not be the determining factor in how the rest of his history is written, but it is, indeed, a part of his personal history.”
During a Friday afternoon American history class, as Bryant lectured on character issues related to the presidency, the conversation drifted from the president to Jackson, sparking a spirited 10-minute discussion that polarized the small class.
One female student quickly blurted out: “A man is going to be a man. It’s not that big a deal.”
But Deron Generally, 24, said as a young black man who had admired Jackson, he felt wounded by the indiscretion.
“He can’t be the public face of the [Rainbow/PUSH Coalition] anymore. They need to put somebody in charge who doesn’t have so many skeletons in the closet,” said Generally, a second-year English major.
The dialogue is heated but elevated in college classrooms where young adults are discussing Jackson.
But for teachers of elementary and high-school students, Jackson became the latest public figure embroiled in a scandal for which they would have to wade into uncomfortable classroom conversations.
Pam Pifer, director of educational programs at The Ancona School, a private grade-school in Hyde Park, said history doesn’t change and teachers will continue to describe Jackson’s roles–as politician, civil-rights leader, international envoy–when appropriate in the curriculum.
“I’m not so sure we’ve ever held him or anybody else up as a paragon of virtue,” she said. “We tend to encourage our kids to be critical observers, critical listeners and readers. We tell them to do some investigating and form their own opinions.”
Antoine Reynolds, a 14-year-old 8th grader at John Hope Elementary School in Englewood, said he still looked up to Jackson, although he was stung by news of Jackson’s affair. He vividly recalled Jackson visiting nearby Englewood High School last year for an anti-violence rally that, as a grade schooler, he was too young to attend.
“I kept saying, `Man, I wish I could be there,'” Reynolds said almost wistfully. “I’ll be there next year, but I wanted to be there then because he’s the man.”
“He’s large,” said Reynolds. “He’ll always be large.”
Lorn Foster, an American politics professor at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., said Jackson should neither be omitted from classroom conversation nor should his use in various curricula be curtailed because of the indiscretion. Foster has authored several articles on Jackson’s presidential campaigns and uses Jackson in his classes.
“You deal with this the same way you deal with Bill Clinton,” Foster said. “You teach fallibility.”
In that respect, Foster said, almost every newsmaker in the 20th Century has had indiscretions and public failings.
“Really, if you use that criteria for not teaching Jackson then, in the same respect, how do you teach Franklin Delano Roosevelt? How do you teach JFK?” Foster said.
Students also said they were able to glean positive attributes from Jackson by separating the message from the man.
Meredith Brooks, an 18-year-old student at Oak Park-River Forest, said Jackson’s indiscretion doesn’t detract from the lessons he can impart, although she was disappointed in his actions.
“Should we omit President Clinton as the 42nd president because of what he did?” she asked, referring to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. “In both Jackson’s case and Clinton’s, what they’ve done is not morally right, but that’s not for us to judge.
“We can still learn from what they’ve done in their public lives and the contributions they’ve made.”
