LOUIS SMARIO. Born 1933.
SUMMARY of OH 1740
This interview was recorded on September 20, 2011, for the Maria Rogers Oral History Program. The interviewer is Luke Lorenz.
ABSTRACT: Louis Smario moved to Boulder in 1961 when he came to pursue graduate work at the University of Colorado. Eventually he earned a Ph.D. at the University of Colorado and embarked upon a long career with the Boulder Valley School District. He began and ended his career teaching physical education to special education elementary students. When he began doing so in 1963, special education students at Uni-Hill Elementary, for example, did not receive any phys ed, music, or art education from specialists. He pioneered providing such specialist services to special ed students in the Boulder Valley School District. From 1966 to 1982 he was the director of health and physical education for BVSD. In this interview, he speaks also about the controversial effort to expand health education to include sex education for high school students and describes changes that emphasized equality of opportunity for both genders in physical education. He also offers thoughts about the teachers union and the school district’s move in the 1980s from subject area coordinators at the district level to just two or three curriculum coordinators for the whole district.
[A].
00:00 Lou Smario worked for Boulder Valley School District for many years; lives in Erie, Colorado.
Born in New York City and lived there until 7 years old. Lived in Yonkers, NY, during school years. Graduated high school in 1951. Went to college for one year, then was going to be drafted, so he joined the Air Force. Served in the Air Force for four years. Met his wife and married in 1955. Discharged from Air Force in 1957 and returned to college.
Finished college in upstate NY. Still had GI benefits left. Wife and two children accompanied him to Colorado where he took a graduate assistantship at the University of Colorado (CU).
More about family of origin. Siblings. Growing up in New York City and the New York City area.
Father’s work in the courts for juvenile delinquents. Father died at 52 of heart disease. Mother lived to be 99 years old.
Playing sports as a child in the 1940s and 1950s.
05:04 Describes fun of childhood years. Living in a highly ethnic area: Italian, Jewish, African- American. Lack of prejudice.
After receiving his master’s degree from CU, he traveled between elementary schools within the Boulder school district, teaching physical education.
Reasons for choosing Boulder for graduate work. Completed master’s degree in 1961.
Uni-Hill Elementary School in 1963: special ed classes had no physical education, no art and no music at that time. Instituted special ed physical education at Uni-Hill.
10:26 In 1965, received a graduate fellowship to study physical education for the handicapped. Study was at the University of Northern Colorado. After one year, became director of physical education for the Boulder Valley School District, while still working on a doctoral degree, which he received in 1969. As physical education director for the school district, he scheduled physical education for the handicapped into all of the schools. Around that time, handicapped children also were given opportunities in art and music.
Reorganization of school disctrict in 1961 into the Boulder Valley School District and the St. Vrain School District.
Coverage of physical education in the 22 elementary schools at that time.
15:12 Diversity of school settings that he covered. Anecdote about Laura Chesebro using the fold-up trampoline in her one-room schoolhouse in Eldorado Springs.
Cycles of more and less support for physical education in the schools.
19:49 Physical education curriculum. Seasonal activities. Convincing boys to skip rope and girls to throw footballs. Teaching skills for life.
More on gender equality in physical education.
25:31 Director of BVSD Health and Physical Education Department from 1966 to 1981 (later says 1982).
Title IX money did not come through his office; it went directly to the high school athletic directors. His concerns about need for more equality for high school girls’ athletics. Example of boys’ locker rooms being larger than girls’ at that time. Later they were equalized, probably as a result of Title IX.
Combining girls’ PE and boys’ PE classes, and the things that both genders learned from this joining.
32:07 Integrating sex education into the health curriculum in the 1970s.
Contrast between sex education then and now (talking about contraception versus giving out condoms!).
36:00 Presenting the proposed health curriculum to parents at meetings throughout the district. Meetings were very well attended. Reactions of parents against “the teaching of morals.” How he handled these objections. Board of Education in 1972 did not pass the health curriculum.
39:52 Thoughts about Roe v. Wade and teaching about abortion.
Disappointment about the Board of Education decision not to approve the new health curriculum with sex education as part of it.
43:58 His recommendation in the late 1970s for high schools to have a staff member dedicated to the teaching of health education rather than each phys ed teacher doing it without any specialized knowledge or ability in that area. Resistance against this recommendation.
More about the effort to include sex education in the health curriculum. In 1972, when the board of education did not approve the new sex education curriculum, teachers continued to teach health education out of the textbooks that had been in use at the time.
50:39 More about the efforts to approve a sex education component to health education.
Subject of smoking in health education curriculum. Discussions he had with students about smoking.
Alcohol and drugs in the health curriculum during a time of high drug use and anti-establishment feelings. Anecdote about talking with a young person who was hitchhiking to town from a mountain commune.
Evolution of the Boulder community from the early 1960s on: lowering of the mean age. Use of drugs increasing. Lack of gang activity.
61:11 IBM: hiring in early 1960s. Allowed Boulder to grow economically.
Boulder as a dry city (no sales of alchohol) in 1960. Description of the few places that had licenses to sell liquor.
66:15 Pat Ryan, superintendent of Boulder Valley School District.
Discussion of the teachers union.
Comments on principals’ evaluation of teachers and the ability to get rid of the few teachers who were not good teachers.
Jobs that he turned down to stay with Boulder Valley School District.
73:26 Talks about his daughters.
Retired from his position of health and physical eduction coordinator in 1982 when subject area coordinators were eliminated in favor of two or three curriculum specialists.
Moved to Boulder High School to teach health education. Numbers of students in his classes dropped as word got around that he was a tough teacher who ran the health classes as academic classes, with term papers. Describes discussions with students.
Last six years of teaching, taught special ed physical education in elementary schools. Talks about working with students with severe cerebral palsy.
80:17 Inivites interested listeners to contact him if they would like to know more. (Lives in Erie and is in the phone book.)
82:03 End of interview