It is quite something to hear my friend Carrie recite Chaucer (in Old English), or Shakespeare, or lengthy poems from her days at the Chinquapin Colored School, the Rosenwald school (see www.underthekudzu.org) she attended in Duplin County, NC. Hearing her speak with such wonderful expression, hearing her talk about how she and her sisters would recite as they worked in the fields, makes me think about the value of memorization and recitation. When words seep into us, whether literature or poetry or famous speeches or song lyrics, they shape and form us.
When I was in middle school, words and music saved me. I tell my middle school students now, be happy that your teachers and administrators are in the hallways, and monitoring the lunch room, and with you at recess. We hassle you because we love you. The thing I don't usually say is, I know what it's like to attend a middle school where the adults have given up. When I attended middle school in NYC in the 1970s, the adults hid in the offices and classrooms. The halls were a riot of children shoving each other, boys assaulting girls in corners, kids pushing each other down the stairs. Three years went by, and I wouldn't have recognized my principal if s/he had walked into me. (I just realized I don't even know whether the principal was a man or woman!)
At any rate, the situation was quite stressful, and I think I would have felt hopeless except for one thing: Somehow, I got pulled into chorus class with Ms. Morrison. She was the only adult in the entire school who had the respect of every student. She was a talented singer and a demanding teacher. Ms. Morrison was beautiful and commanding, and I never tired of looking at her colorful print dresses, her elaborate silver earrings, her high cheekbones set off by her hair, which she wore in a short Afro.
I have to say here, I have very limited singing talent. While a few of my classmates were so talented that they were part of the Children's Chorus at the Metropolitan Opera House, and many more of them had impressive ranges and pure soprano tones, I did well to carry a tune in my alto voice. Ms. Morrison was well aware of my inherent limitations, but she didn't kick me out of her class. In fact, back in those days before strict attendance laws and computerized student records, we frequently left gym and other environments that were too wild and headed to the chorus room. I don't recall that she ever turned us away.
It was in this haven that I first became aware of the power of words, repeated words, historic words, words set to music. Never before or since have I heard anyone sing part of the text of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, but we sang it in that class, and it was powerful. Gradually, my mind began to open. The words of the gospel songs we learned wove with an Italian opera solo that Ms. Morrison would sing for us. My capacity for recalling and savoring words expanded. I began to memorize poetry and quotes that struck a chord with me.
Sometimes I wonder whether, due to our discomfort around the topic of segregation, we discarded some valuable educational practices from that era. During the course of my documentary research, blacks and whites alike mentioned the poetry, speeches, plays and literature they committed to memory during their school days. Often, they recited for me with great feeling. I could see that, like me, their minds return to these words in spare moments, and also in times of stress or despair.
When I quote Shakespeare or Pound or MLK to my students, they fall silent and look, blinking uncertainly. They are not quite sure what to do with these words, but they sense the power in them. In modern education parlance, we stress the ability to deconstruct and analyze over any task of mere memory. In my experience, though, and in the experience of countless others who have been formed by great words, memory and recitation are gateways to deeper meaning.
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