I am fortunate in that the school where I teach makes time, every Friday afternoon, for topics and activities that don't fit neatly into standardized test subjects. The principal worked out a schedule in which we start every day a bit earlier than the other middle schools. This gives us our full required time in classes, while still providing a two hour window on Friday afternoons for enrichment and assembly.
On Friday afternoons teachers and volunteers from the community set up sessions. The topics and activities range from college preparation to planting raised beds to yoga. Today, I presented a session on regional African American education history. My goal was to give our students a context for understanding the importance of our school's namesake, David Clarke Virgo. Although the school was built nine years after his death, in 1964, it was named for Virgo because he was a key figure in Wilmington and North Carolina education history. In 1924, under his leadership, the high school grades became available to Wilmington's African Americans students for the first time in 1924. (View the presentation on DC Virgo)
The students appreciated learning about the history behind our school, but my presentation also sparked an unexpected connection. Later in the day one of my students came up to me, her eyes shining. "Ms. Stack! That school, that building in Canetuck--I used to go there all the time with my grandma!"
She meant the historic Canetuck Rosenwald School that I had shown as an example of one of the many historic African American schools in our region. Now it's a community center, and I had shared with the students that I go out there monthly for board meetings.
It clicked for me: Her last name was the same as that of one of Canetuck's main families. I hadn't thought much of it because the name is a common one in this area, but many of the students at our school in downtown Wilmington have relatives in Pender County, where the Canetuck school still stands.
She gave me a hug. We recognized something new in each other. She is not just a 6th grader, or a child with a learning disability, she is the granddaughter of one of my neighbors. And I am not just another teacher telling her what to do; she saw that I am someone who cares about appreciating her history.
I think it's a new day for us.
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Click to order a DVD copy of the film "Under the Kudzu"
Friday, October 11, 2013
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Why Rosenwald Schools Still Matter
Click to order a DVD copy of the film "Under the Kudzu"
(Portions of this blog post adapted from an October, 2008 editorial I wrote for the Star News)
Sometimes, people ask me why we should look back to segregation-era schools. It is true that recalling segregation can inspire shame and sadness; there are real and valid reasons for these reactions. However, I also try to help people appreciate more dimensions of the historic African American schools in our region. They should be understood not only in contrast to the white schools, but also as rich environments within themselves. Ultimately, they embody the striving and dedication of educators and concerned families.
Most importantly, if we ignore the significance of the many historic African American schools in our region (both Rosenwald Schools and others), it deprives our African American students of their educational heritage, and that is a true travesty. As a teacher in a predominantly African American school, I want my colleagues and students alike to know that education is something that African Americans have always shaped and owned.
(Portions of this blog post adapted from an October, 2008 editorial I wrote for the Star News)
Sometimes, people ask me why we should look back to segregation-era schools. It is true that recalling segregation can inspire shame and sadness; there are real and valid reasons for these reactions. However, I also try to help people appreciate more dimensions of the historic African American schools in our region. They should be understood not only in contrast to the white schools, but also as rich environments within themselves. Ultimately, they embody the striving and dedication of educators and concerned families.
Most importantly, if we ignore the significance of the many historic African American schools in our region (both Rosenwald Schools and others), it deprives our African American students of their educational heritage, and that is a true travesty. As a teacher in a predominantly African American school, I want my colleagues and students alike to know that education is something that African Americans have always shaped and owned.
Most of the Rosenwald schools in Southeastern North Carolina were closed during school consolidation in the 1950s. With consolidation, and eventually integration in the 1960s, African Americans achieved overdue access to more modern facilities. This period also coincided with the abandonment, both literal and figurative, of many of the old school buildings that had been built through such sacrifice by African American communities.
Ethically, legally, and economically, integration was the only possible outcome. However, it also meant that many links to the past were officially severed. Rosenwald schools still matter because they embody an important source of community pride and progress during an oppressive era, the memory of which is scattered but not yet completely lost.
Alumni groups, churches, and families with deep roots in the region keep Rosenwald school memories alive. Yet this chapter of history, so influential locally, slipped from the public eye as most of the Rosenwald buildings fell into disrepair.
Many prominent blacks in our region, including school administrators, judges, politicians and artists, are alumni of Rosenwald schools. Their ability to go on to greater educational attainments and their commitment to service were first nurtured in these historic schools. Rosenwald schools also still matter because they had a direct and lasting influence on our leaders today.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Requiem for a Teacher: Carrie Mae Sharpless Newkirk 1923-2013
The following blog is a summary of remarks I made at the recent 2013 UNCW Rosenwald School conference. Two of Carrie's children were in attendance and Dr. Roseboro presented them with the Watson College of Education "Teacher's Legacy" award in memory of their mother.
A teacher of teachers passed away recently, my friend Carrie Mae Sharpless Newkirk. I was honored to know her in the last decade of her life, which in many ways followed the arc of developments in education for African Americans in the South during the 20th century.
Born the daughter of a sharecropping family in Duplin County, NC, Carrie recalled the many lessons from her family and teachers that formed her character. Some of them were as follows: Her father taught her that whatever job she took on, she should work hard and do her best, otherwise it was tantamount to stealing. Her teachers taught her that "your word is your bond."
Carrie loved her school, the seven-teacher Chinquapin Rosenwald School. It had been enlarged twice with aid from the Rosenwald Fund, the local community, and the school board. This school also housed another feature of the Rosenwald Fund's progressive approach: A Rosenwald Fund library, a collection of classic works that was supplied to many schools, both African American and white. Carrie recalled to me that her reward for finishing her classwork was to steal away into the tiny cloakroom-turned-library, and immerse herself in the books.
When Carrie was a junior in high school, her father passed away, and she thought her dream of attending college was gone with him. However her school principal, recognizing her talent, introduced her to the president of Kittrell College, founded in 1886 by the AME Church. Carrie's mother bravely let Carrie go to college, even though it meant less help at home with the farm chores and the younger children. Carrie worked her way through Kittrell before transferring to Elizabeth City State Teacher's College, which had started as one of North Carolina's "normal" (teacher training) colleges for African American students.
Armed with her new college degree and a passion for teaching, Carrie obtained a position in a small segregated school back in her home county of Duplin. However, she soon moved to Pender County after her marriage to Lawrence Harry Newkirk in 1947, and taught in Pender County for the rest of her career, which spanned 40 years.
Carrie taught at the historic C.F. Pope School in Burgaw and at the Halfway Branch School in Watha (likely a Rosenwald School) before being moved to the West Pender School, an 'equalization' school built for African Americans in 1958. She taught some of the first Kindergarten classes in Pender County, first as a summer program, then as a full year when it was added to the curriculum. Her first full year as a Kindergarten teacher she had 40 students and only a chalkboard as a teaching aid!
Although she participated often in professional development and could have sought advancement, Carrie stayed on the front lines of education, an elementary school teacher for her entire career. Due to her excellence and to the fact that she gave unceasingly to her church and to her (integrated) community, Carrie was chosen by the Board of Education in Pender to be one of the first of three teachers to integrate an all white school in 1966.
In many ways, Carrie's career mirrored the historical development of African American education in the South. The daughter of sharecroppers who longed for a new book of her own, which she did not get until 3rd grade, the psychic space that Carrie traveled was much further than the bus ride (her first), which took her from the Rosenwald School where she began her journey to Kittrell College and beyond.
A teacher to the end, Carrie often said to me "children know when you love them." I was privileged to count her as a friend for the last decade of her life, and I am honored that she entrusted me with her stories. Through the generosity of some members of the Rosenwald family who I met at the Tuskegee conference in June 2012, I obtained the equipment necessary to film and edit my last interviews with Carrie. This summer will be dedicated to editing, and I plan to have a documentary of her life finished by late fall.
************************************************
Click here to see the conference slides w/pictures of Carrie Mae Sharpless Newkirk
A teacher of teachers passed away recently, my friend Carrie Mae Sharpless Newkirk. I was honored to know her in the last decade of her life, which in many ways followed the arc of developments in education for African Americans in the South during the 20th century.
Born the daughter of a sharecropping family in Duplin County, NC, Carrie recalled the many lessons from her family and teachers that formed her character. Some of them were as follows: Her father taught her that whatever job she took on, she should work hard and do her best, otherwise it was tantamount to stealing. Her teachers taught her that "your word is your bond."
Carrie loved her school, the seven-teacher Chinquapin Rosenwald School. It had been enlarged twice with aid from the Rosenwald Fund, the local community, and the school board. This school also housed another feature of the Rosenwald Fund's progressive approach: A Rosenwald Fund library, a collection of classic works that was supplied to many schools, both African American and white. Carrie recalled to me that her reward for finishing her classwork was to steal away into the tiny cloakroom-turned-library, and immerse herself in the books.
When Carrie was a junior in high school, her father passed away, and she thought her dream of attending college was gone with him. However her school principal, recognizing her talent, introduced her to the president of Kittrell College, founded in 1886 by the AME Church. Carrie's mother bravely let Carrie go to college, even though it meant less help at home with the farm chores and the younger children. Carrie worked her way through Kittrell before transferring to Elizabeth City State Teacher's College, which had started as one of North Carolina's "normal" (teacher training) colleges for African American students.
Armed with her new college degree and a passion for teaching, Carrie obtained a position in a small segregated school back in her home county of Duplin. However, she soon moved to Pender County after her marriage to Lawrence Harry Newkirk in 1947, and taught in Pender County for the rest of her career, which spanned 40 years.
Carrie taught at the historic C.F. Pope School in Burgaw and at the Halfway Branch School in Watha (likely a Rosenwald School) before being moved to the West Pender School, an 'equalization' school built for African Americans in 1958. She taught some of the first Kindergarten classes in Pender County, first as a summer program, then as a full year when it was added to the curriculum. Her first full year as a Kindergarten teacher she had 40 students and only a chalkboard as a teaching aid!
Although she participated often in professional development and could have sought advancement, Carrie stayed on the front lines of education, an elementary school teacher for her entire career. Due to her excellence and to the fact that she gave unceasingly to her church and to her (integrated) community, Carrie was chosen by the Board of Education in Pender to be one of the first of three teachers to integrate an all white school in 1966.
In many ways, Carrie's career mirrored the historical development of African American education in the South. The daughter of sharecroppers who longed for a new book of her own, which she did not get until 3rd grade, the psychic space that Carrie traveled was much further than the bus ride (her first), which took her from the Rosenwald School where she began her journey to Kittrell College and beyond.
A teacher to the end, Carrie often said to me "children know when you love them." I was privileged to count her as a friend for the last decade of her life, and I am honored that she entrusted me with her stories. Through the generosity of some members of the Rosenwald family who I met at the Tuskegee conference in June 2012, I obtained the equipment necessary to film and edit my last interviews with Carrie. This summer will be dedicated to editing, and I plan to have a documentary of her life finished by late fall.
************************************************
Click to Order the film "Under the Kudzu," an award-winning documentary that traces the history of two Rosenwald Schools in
Pender County, NC
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Pender Rosenwald School Events March 23rd
Canetuck Community Senior Center (formerly Canetuck Rosenwald School) built in 1922
photo by Claudia Stack
I drove the Rosenwald School Tour route today with Monique Baker, Director of Pender County Tourism (see Pender Tourism Website). We visited six Rosenwald Schools today! If you are interested in reserving a seat for the van tour, please call the Historic Wilmington Foundation at (910) 762-2511. More information and the tentative itinerary is in italics below.
Our route ended with a meeting at Canetuck Community Senior Center (picture above), and a planning meeting about our upcoming fundraiser on Saturday, March 23rd. It will be great to have Stephanie Deutsch, author of You Need a Schoolhouse, speak about how Booker T. Washington, Clinton Calloway, and Julius Rosenwald created the Rosenwald School building program. In addition, we will have a gospel song from the Canetuck Community Male Chorus, as well as a delightful chicken dinner, all for only $10!
Pender Rosenwald School Tour: Saturday, March 23rd, 9am-2:30pm (time includes Canetuck event below): Van tour of several Rosenwald School buildings with narration by Claudia Stack, whose award-winning documentary "Under the Kudzu" traced the history of two Pender Rosenwald Schools. The tentative list (may be subject to change) of Rosenwald School buildings on the tour are: Pender County Training School (Rocky Point), Browntown School (Hampstead), Vista School (Hampstead), Union Chapel School (off 421), Currie School (Currie), and Canetuck School (Canetuck). The tour ends at the Canetuck Community Senior Center (formerly Canetuck Rosenwald School) for the talk and fundraiser. This event is being organized by Historic Wilmington Foundation, Pender Tourism, the NC State Division of Tourism, and Claudia Stack. $35 per person, which includes admission to the Canetuck fundraiser. Any profit made by the tour will benefit the groups who maintain the buildings. Call Historic Wilmington Foundation to register: (910) 762-2511
Canetuck Community Senior Center Fundraiser: 6098 Canetuck Rd., Currie, NC 28435 on Saturday, March 23rd, 1pm-2:30pm: This is a fundraising event that includes a talk and book signing by Stephanie Deutsch, author of You Need a Schoolhouse , the critically acclaimed book about the Rosenwald School building program. Ms. Deutsch is also speaking at the UNCW conference. Also featured is an opening gospel song by the Canetuck Community Male Chorus. A chicken dinner is included in the admission price of $10. Proceeds benefit the continued restoration of the Canetuck Community Senior Center.
Friday, January 18, 2013
The Dilution of Kids' Experience
A recent commercial shows a boy commandeering his school's PA system to play a song (never mind that, in this era of zero tolerance, he would doubtless be suspended or perhaps even expelled for this prank). It is not really clear whose voice he plays over the PA. Is the bland rap about peanut and jelly sandwiches his own song? A friend's? A pop star's, improbable as that is? All we know is that he causes the rap to be played, and his friends are impressed. We see him looking on from another room, enjoying their reaction. What interests me is that he is at least twice removed from his own experience: Once by sharing his recorded voice, and again when he looks on from a distance as the other students react.
Alternatively, if the song he plays is not his own, his experience of authorship is diluted. He is like a frantic college freshman who is copying and pasting from Wikipedia, only the boy in the commercial goes a step further. He is crowd-sourcing his own school years and social life.
A student who is consuming media or on the internet sits at the point of two prisms connecting. An infinite amount of possible inputs stream in, and infinite possible creative outputs stream out. At least, that is what we envision in the best case scenario. Yet the sheer overwhelming force of that much input diminishes kids' real, stumbling, imperfect experiences. Few middle school students will command a whole school's attention (to good effect, anyway). Their experiences will rarely yield the regular wins of computer games, and their images don't compare to the airbrushed perfection of teen pop stars.
Does the flood of information and images discourage young people from engaging in their own lives? Do young people take time to dwell quietly in thought, come to know boredom as a birthplace for action, and embrace their own experience as full enough?
Alternatively, if the song he plays is not his own, his experience of authorship is diluted. He is like a frantic college freshman who is copying and pasting from Wikipedia, only the boy in the commercial goes a step further. He is crowd-sourcing his own school years and social life.
A student who is consuming media or on the internet sits at the point of two prisms connecting. An infinite amount of possible inputs stream in, and infinite possible creative outputs stream out. At least, that is what we envision in the best case scenario. Yet the sheer overwhelming force of that much input diminishes kids' real, stumbling, imperfect experiences. Few middle school students will command a whole school's attention (to good effect, anyway). Their experiences will rarely yield the regular wins of computer games, and their images don't compare to the airbrushed perfection of teen pop stars.
Does the flood of information and images discourage young people from engaging in their own lives? Do young people take time to dwell quietly in thought, come to know boredom as a birthplace for action, and embrace their own experience as full enough?
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Looking Back to Step Up My Game Going Forward
Out of the blue, just as he was going to bed the other evening, my nine-year-old son asked "Did they ever find Van Gogh's ear?"
"Ah..." I stumbled, recalling the story of Van Gogh's ear, but not the conclusion "I don't know, honey."
"What??? I thought parents were supposed to know everything. You need to step up your mom game!"
Now, many things went through my mind at that moment, such as: Where is the internet when you really need it, and, we should have gone with fear and intimidation as a childrearing philosophy, but we didn't, and now look what has happened... my younger son is smart, but he's also an incredible smartass.
Ultimately I didn't say any of this, but the exchange did amplify my self-doubt. At work I strain to help 45 special ed students, whose needs stem from a wide range of conditions that include hearing impairments, learning disabilities and paralysis. Apparently, this was my time for feelings of inadequacy at home as well. My sons are twelve and nine and now fully plugged into a larger world. This makes them aware of much this is good and educational, but it also dwarfs (by comparison) their parents' knowledge, even though we both have Master's degrees.
I recall that, when I was young, an argument that broke out at the dinner table would sometimes be resolved by a dusty volume of our encyclopedia set. The set was out of date, as it had first belonged to my father's second set of children (he married three times). By the time I could read he was long gone, however, he did leave the reference books, perhaps as a kind of salute to the values that he and my mother did share. Those values are: Knowledge and education above all else.
At any rate, even then (in the 1970s) it was becoming apparent that there is more that is unknown than known. Universities had long since ceased building in the cozy "quadrangle" design inspired by Oxford and Cambridge. In this conception the academic buildings face inward, seemingly confident in the conviction that all that is worthwhile and knowable can be found within their walls.
To return to the dinner table, however, I am reminded of the reminiscences of a woman I know. Like so many of my older African American neighbors, she emigrated North to work and then returned to her birthplace in retirement. When she was a child in the 1930s her father would lead the family in reading the newspaper, and then the children had to recite something they had learned in school. She was not the only person I interviewed to mention this evening routine. Before electric lighting, television, and certainly before computers carried a torrent of information into our homes, many families looked to each other for edification and entertainment.
In my house we do eat dinner together, but being advised to "step up my mom game" made me wonder whether the level of discourse is all it could be. Sometimes questions or arguments arise, but now we reference an iPhone instead of a musty encyclopedia. Admittedly, I was feeling a little low when something else happened: My older son brought home a Humanities assignment about ancient Greece.
"We were learning about the Odyssey in class" he told me "and I could answer most of the questions because I remember when you read it to us."
I guess my game is not completely lacking.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Creating Mental Space for Learning through Responsibility
Sometimes I think the most important learning space a teacher can create is the one that comes first, in the teacher's mind, when s/he first allows for the possibility of what could happen when the children are given real responsibility. This occurred of necessity in Rosenwald schools, because the children played important roles in the actual running of the school. Boys brought in firewood and kept the stove going. Girls raked the yard and polished the floor. The older children were expected to help the younger children with their lessons, many of which involved recitations. So here we see an interesting juxtaposition of rote learning and the creative initiative the older students had to take to make sure their younger charges were on track.
Now our academic expectations are more complex and conceptual, but on the other hand I think our respect for the children's ability to make meaningful contributions has diminished. It is as if we are always saying, tomorrow there will be time for that. Next year will be the time when they are ready to practice adult roles and make real contributions. Yet, when next year comes, there is always some other reason to delay responsibility. For example: We just adopted the Common Core standards, and the teachers themselves have to get used to planning with the new objectives, so how could the students possibly help? It wouldn't be practical to have students help clean the school, and anyway parents would get angry. Grade levels are segregated, so older students don't intersect that often with younger students except for the occasional "Reading Buddy" program.
So the signs and practice of maturity are continually put off, until we arrive at the situation we have today, in which the majority of Americans polled believe that one is not an adult until at least age 25. To be fair to schools, our elongating concept of maturity must be mostly influenced by our life spans, which have increased by decades. But the situation of prolonged adolescence amazes many of my elderly friends, who in their teens were doing such things as working full-time and getting married and having children. (Not in a reality show, "Teen Mom" style, but actually establishing stable households of their own.)
Certainly I am not advocating that we all return to teen parenthood, but I do think that schools create more learning when students have real responsibility. This begins with a simple conviction on the part of teachers and administration that students are capable of making real contributions. Within the classroom, it means the students pitch in. Many times they will do so spontaneously, if we allow them. Sometimes I don't even know how a student might help until s/he has actually jumped out his/her seat, come over to where someone is struggling (for example, I might be having trouble with the LCD projector, or another student might have lost his/her place in the story) and fixed the situation. That is why I am slow to reprimand the children. Is he out of his seat so he can go bother someone else? Or is he out of his seat to help? I wait until I can see their intentions.
In order to have the potential benefit of children taking initiative, you have to be open to children making decisions, which inevitably will sometimes lead to chaos. However, I have found that the more trust I have in them, and the more I allow them to practice making small decisions, the better things go in the long run.
An example on a larger level: One year, there was an issue with students getting too boisterous at assemblies, to the point where the administrators suspended whole school (800+ students) assemblies. However, in the spring the student government wanted to have a pep rally in preparation for EOGs (End of Grade tests), and they wanted to include all the grade levels at once. The student government made a plan, persuaded the administration, and pulled it off. All of the students were well behaved; in fact, teachers remarked that they were almost subdued! To me, the fact that this assembly was planned by students and went better than the others was no coincidence.
Curriculum goals may differ from state to state or from school to school, but everyone gives lip service to the idea of having children grow as problem solvers. Yet many school environments undercut their decision-making in the name of discipline or of covering material. To me, however, the question is simple: If we don't allow them to make decisions now, then when? If we don't even trust them to help choose a lesson activity or decorate a classroom, how will they grow into adults who can vote and solve problems on a job?
Now our academic expectations are more complex and conceptual, but on the other hand I think our respect for the children's ability to make meaningful contributions has diminished. It is as if we are always saying, tomorrow there will be time for that. Next year will be the time when they are ready to practice adult roles and make real contributions. Yet, when next year comes, there is always some other reason to delay responsibility. For example: We just adopted the Common Core standards, and the teachers themselves have to get used to planning with the new objectives, so how could the students possibly help? It wouldn't be practical to have students help clean the school, and anyway parents would get angry. Grade levels are segregated, so older students don't intersect that often with younger students except for the occasional "Reading Buddy" program.
So the signs and practice of maturity are continually put off, until we arrive at the situation we have today, in which the majority of Americans polled believe that one is not an adult until at least age 25. To be fair to schools, our elongating concept of maturity must be mostly influenced by our life spans, which have increased by decades. But the situation of prolonged adolescence amazes many of my elderly friends, who in their teens were doing such things as working full-time and getting married and having children. (Not in a reality show, "Teen Mom" style, but actually establishing stable households of their own.)
Certainly I am not advocating that we all return to teen parenthood, but I do think that schools create more learning when students have real responsibility. This begins with a simple conviction on the part of teachers and administration that students are capable of making real contributions. Within the classroom, it means the students pitch in. Many times they will do so spontaneously, if we allow them. Sometimes I don't even know how a student might help until s/he has actually jumped out his/her seat, come over to where someone is struggling (for example, I might be having trouble with the LCD projector, or another student might have lost his/her place in the story) and fixed the situation. That is why I am slow to reprimand the children. Is he out of his seat so he can go bother someone else? Or is he out of his seat to help? I wait until I can see their intentions.
In order to have the potential benefit of children taking initiative, you have to be open to children making decisions, which inevitably will sometimes lead to chaos. However, I have found that the more trust I have in them, and the more I allow them to practice making small decisions, the better things go in the long run.
An example on a larger level: One year, there was an issue with students getting too boisterous at assemblies, to the point where the administrators suspended whole school (800+ students) assemblies. However, in the spring the student government wanted to have a pep rally in preparation for EOGs (End of Grade tests), and they wanted to include all the grade levels at once. The student government made a plan, persuaded the administration, and pulled it off. All of the students were well behaved; in fact, teachers remarked that they were almost subdued! To me, the fact that this assembly was planned by students and went better than the others was no coincidence.
Curriculum goals may differ from state to state or from school to school, but everyone gives lip service to the idea of having children grow as problem solvers. Yet many school environments undercut their decision-making in the name of discipline or of covering material. To me, however, the question is simple: If we don't allow them to make decisions now, then when? If we don't even trust them to help choose a lesson activity or decorate a classroom, how will they grow into adults who can vote and solve problems on a job?
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