Rosenwald Schools Changed Communities

Picture courtesy of the LOC and photogrammar.yale.edu: 1940 photo taken by Marion Post Wolcott, FSA photographer, in Caswell County, NC

Recently, I was looking through the thousands of Farm Security Administration images available from the Library of Congress and Yale's photogrammar.yale.edu website. Although my focus was on selecting images of sharecroppers at work for my current documentary, I came across this wonderful image.  It shows an important intersection of community building and historic African American schools.  

The farmers are meeting in a schoolhouse for, Ms. Wolcott's caption tells us, "a neighborhood land use planning committee."  By the time of this meeting in1940, soil conservation programs had been underway for almost a decade.  The goal of these programs was to combat erosion through improved management practices.  Financial incentive was also provided for planting trees on depleted cropland. These payments were supposed to benefit everyone who was impacted, but in reality few landowners shared the money and many tenant farmers were pushed off of the land.  It is impossible to say with certainty whether the farmers in this picture are landowners or tenant farmers, but their well dressed appearance and the fact that they are attending a land planning meeting argues for them being owners.

Taking note of their surroundings, one can see the windows are large and have three panes across. This fact, along with the attractive beadboard and the patent desks, leads me to conclude that they were probably meeting in one of Caswell County's six Rosenwald schools.  The space is conducive to learning and discussion, and the farmers are listening attentively.  Note also the poised leader of the meeting, and the young lady taking notes. 

This was not an accidental meeting, but rather the confluence of sacrifice for education and powerful intentions on the part of both the community and the Rosenwald Fund. Between 1924 and 1931, Caswell County, NC communities organized to match grants and built six Rosenwald schools. The schools were designed not just to improve education in the rural South, but also to provide African American communities with their first public meetings spaces outside of churches.  In this photo of such a meeting, we get a rare glimpse of one of the myriad ways Rosenwald schools benefited communities in addition to providing space for teaching.

In planning for better land use, these African American farmers were also planning for the future of their community. Better crops meant a higher standard of living, and would also have made it possible for them to continue to make donations to their children's schools.  Well into the 1950s, African American families paid their taxes and then also had to raise money for education basics such as books and buses.  

For example, one story that I heard from several people locally was also documented by Dr. Melton A. McLaurin in his book The Black Marines of Montford Point (2009, UNC Press).  Apparently, the African American families who lived on the eastern side of Pender County were told they must raise money for a bus if they wanted their children to have transportation to one of the two African American high schools in the county.  After the families raised money and obtained a new bus, someone at the county bus garage tried to switch it with an old bus and give the new one to white students.  In the end the African American families prevailed, but only after a struggle.

Farming and sharecropping were the economic backdrop against which most Rosenwald schools were constructed. We can develop a better understanding of Rosenwald school history by pausing to contemplate the larger agenda the Rosenwald Fund had for these school buildings, that they would uplift the whole community.  In this image we can also see a combination of hope and gravity on the part of farmers, most of whom probably attended one the six Rosenwald schools in Caswell County, as they meet and make a cooperative plan.

Click to View Stack's Films on Vimeo.com

Click here to get the ebook "Rosenwald 

School Reflections: Documentation &

 Preservation" by Claudia Stack  

  

RESCHEDULED to Sunday, Nov. 1st: Rosenwald School Film Showing/Fundraiser at Willard Outreach Community Center

Willard Outreach Community Center is generously hosting this film showing/fundraiser to benefit three Pender Rosenwald schools; please see info below:

Film Showing/Fundraiser of "Carrie Mae: An American Life"  to Preserve
Pender County’s Historic Watha, Union
Chapel and Lee Rosenwald Schools
Sunday, Nov. 1st, 2015 from 3:00­ 4:30pm
Willard Outreach Community Center
9955 NC Hwy. 11 Willard NC 28478
Suggested Donation: $5/Adult­ $1/Child
“Carrie Mae: An American Life” (2014, Written and directed by Claudia Stack) is a documentary featuring the life of Carrie Mae Sharpless Newkirk, who attended and taught in Rosenwald schools before becoming one of Pender’s first African­American teachers to integrate a white faculty in 1966. This film screened at the 2015 National Trust for Historic Preservation Rosenwald School Conference and is an International
Independent Film Awards Bronze Winner (2015).
This event sponsored by Willard Outreach Community Center, Claudia Stack, the Old Skool Car Club (Watha School), Mr. James Fullwood (Union Chapel School) & Mr. McKinney Pickett (Lee School). All proceeds benefit Rosenwald School preservation. Please call Claudia Stack (910) 264­4469 if you need more information. 

Country Roads and Rosenwald Schools

One of my favorite things to do is drive out on country roads to see old farm houses and farm buildings. Working on my current documentary, which is about sharecropping, gives me the perfect excuse to spend time photographing these humble structures before they are lost to time.  Above is an old farm house in northern Pender County, which was built for a landowner's family but was later occuppied by tenant farmers.  Sharecropping and tenant farming was the backdrop against which most Rosenwald schools were built (see Stack's Rosenwald school documentaries).  

There should be a name for this fascination with the structures that tell the stories of our ancestors.  Well, "fascination" is a gentle way to put it.  It segues easily into obsession.  At any rate, I am on a mission to document the lives of early 20th century farmers, particularly sharecroppers and tenant farmers.  They did not own their land and sometimes were barely able to eke out a living.  Yet if you talk with my 80-something year old friends today, you won't hear any self-pity.  Rather, they take pride in their resilience. 

There is an element of faith that is central to most of their stories.  The widowed mother/sharecropper praying over the sick mule.  The boy who checks his rabbit boxes with trembling hands, hoping against hope to find something he can contribute to the family table.  As they tell it there was an ease and a naturalness to their appeals.  They had conviction, then and now, that God walks with them in their hardship.  They know we weren't promised anything except grace.  Somehow it was enough.  

The Mountain They Must Climb

NEW!!!  Rosenwald school documentaries now available for online streaming, just click the film titles below:

Carrie Mae: An American Life (just featured at the 2015 NTHP Rosenwald School conference): This documentary follows the life of Carrie Mae Sharpless Newkirk, who was educated in a Rosenwald school and in 1966 became one of the first African American teachers in SENC to integrate a white faculty

Under the Kudzu (screened at the 2012 NTHP Rosenwald School conference): This documentary traces the history of two schools that African American communities helped to build during the segregation era

A few years ago I had a student who everyone loved.  He was polite, he worked hard, and he had the sweetest smile. Then everything changed overnight.  He lashed out, put his head down during lessons, got in fights with other students.  I was very worried, but I couldn't reach his mother and he wouldn't talk to the school counselor.  At first he said he was "fine." After two weeks he pulled me aside and whispered the truth: His family had been evicted, and he was living in a car with his mother and four sisters.  The stress and shame had overwhelmed him to the point that it warped his personality.

Imagine that you are homeless, but that you are still expected to work and function at your normal level.  If you do not manage to perform well you will bump up against disciplinary structures.  If you yell or lash out you might even find yourself involved in the criminal justice system, like a child who loses control at school and ends up in the back of a police cruiser.  My point is not that we should allow out of control behavior in school, but that when children exhibit such behaviors compassion needs to work alongside discipline.

Most of the time students' lack of focus or self-control doesn't stem from situations as extreme as homelessness, but from continual, lower-grade stress.  When parents have to work two or three low-wage jobs to keep the family going, children feel direct effects from their stress and the lack of parental time. When there is food insecurity in a household, children are stressed.  When gunfire is routine in a neighborhood, children are stressed. As the National Institutes of Health noted in 2012:  

"High levels of stress hormones influence the developing circuitry of children's brains, inhibiting such higher cognitive functions such as planning, impulse and emotional control, and attention. Known collectively as executive functions, these mental abilities are important for academic success."  (from www.nih.com/news/health accessed 7/26/15)

The list of potential stressors is endless, and not all of them relate to poverty, but poor children do often carry a high burden of stress.  While the sources of stress are complex and many, antidotes are refreshingly simple.  As Ungar notes in the International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies (2013), "...relationships are crucial to mitigating the negative impact of toxic environments."   (from http://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/ijcyfs/article/viewFile/12431/3767 accessed 7/26/15)  

So a positive bond with even one adult has a protective effect. Likewise, addressing food insecurity, a lack of affordable housing and the problem of a minimum wage that does not allow working parents to provide for their families would all be important steps forward for children.  It's simple, it's just not easy.

After my student told me the truth, that his family was homeless, I immediately spoke to our school's social worker. It turned out that the social worker at his younger sister's elementary school had already alerted the county DSS, and soon after that they had temporary housing. In this situation the system worked as it was supposed to and provided relief for the family, although it was several more months before his mother was able to find permanent housing.  My student's behavior troubles subsided, but in the time that I knew him he never regained his former focus.  I also had to try much harder to get him to smile. 

Something that is hard to convey to people who have never taught in high-poverty schools, or experienced the stress of poverty themselves, is just how high a mountain we ask poor children (20% of American children live in poverty) to climb. Why do we expect children to stay focused, positive and obedient through situations that would unravel most adults?   

  

       

NEW!! Under the Kudzu and Carrie Mae: An American Life Now Available for Streaming on Vimeo

Under the Kudzu, the story of two Rosenwald schools, and Carrie Mae: An American Life are now available for streaming ($3.99) on Vimeo.  Here are the links to the VOD pages:

Carrie Mae: An American Life (just featured at the 2015 NTHP Rosenwald School conference)

Under the Kudzu (screened at the 2012 NTHP Rosenwald School conference)

UNCW Rosenwald School Conference April 10, 2015

Leading into the June, 2015 NTHP Rosenwald School Conference in Durham, UNC Wilmington will host a one day conference on Friday, April 10, 2015.  Keynote speaker is Carole Boston Weatherford, and the day will include a screening of my new film "Carrie Mae: An American Life," a panel discussion with former Rosenwald school teachers, and much more!  Lunch is included for the modest $20 registration ($15 for seniors).  Link below for more information and for registration!

2015 UNCW Rosenwald School Conference

What Teachers Want for Christmas

Click here to get the new ebook "Rosenwald 

School Reflections: Documentation &

 Preservation" by Claudia Stack  

Recently I resigned my special education teaching position due to health issues, but before I wrapped things up I got an email from my principal that got me thinking about the demands on my general education colleagues.  The email reminded us of various deadlines and program implementation requirements. At the Title One middle school where I was teaching there are six new program initiatives this year, as well as two new student data software systems (one for discipline and one for grades, attendance and assessment).  The programs relate to everything from helping students develop calm focus (Mindup) to encouraging teachers to be "artisans."  (Artisan Teacher program).  There are three separate, yet overlapping, initiatives related to behavior: Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS), as well as an in-house behavior tracking system that provides data for the district's Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) program, and finally another program purchased by the district, the Alternative Behavior Educator (ABE) system, which combines discipline record keeping with educational online modules the students usually complete when they are assigned to in-school suspension.

Incidentally, the ABE program is sold by Pearson, the company from which North Carolina also purchased PowerSchool starting this school year (2014-2015). PowerSchool has functions that, when working properly, integrate record keeping (such as grades and attendance) with online tools that are supposed to make student assessment easier.  In the roll-out, however, I have seen this program bring seasoned educators to tears.  Hundreds of server malfunctions this year alone have meant students have not been able to log into tests that teachers took hours to create, or that students have been dropped from the system in the middle of taking tests.  While teachers are pushed to use the online assessment functions and "create digital learners," wise teachers now makes paper copies of their tests. More than once I have seen my colleagues have to switch to the paper and pencil version of a test and then later input the test answers themselves for 120 students.  (Now there are six hours or so of life they'll never get back!)  

On the curricular side, teachers must create lesson plans in line with the IMPACT model (I forget whether this one was a district or school initiative), differentiate lessons both up and down (to challenge higher level students as well as accommodate lower ones), remind students of the learning targets several times during the lesson, integrate technology, and work with Special Education teachers to follow Individual Education Plans (IEPs).  Teachers also shouldn't forget to check for lice, homelessness and signs of child neglect.

Through various pressures that come down the line from federal and state mandates, district policies, and school initiatives, teachers spend an enormous amount of time responding to dozens of demands besides teaching and lesson-planning.  Often school administrators have no choice but to push these demands down the line to teachers.  Which brings me to my topic:  What teachers really want for Christmas.  What teachers really want is to be able to focus most of their energy and time on teaching their students.

Premiere of "Carrie Mae: An American Life" Sunday, 11/16/14 at Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, NC

                      

I am pleased to say that my new documentary "Carrie Mae: An American Life" will premiere 3pm on Sunday, November 16th at the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, NC.  Carrie Mae Sharpless Newkirk was born into a sharecropping family in 1923, attended and taught in Rosenwald schools, and went on to become one of the first African American teachers in southeastern NC to integrate a white faculty.  This film was made possible                                              through the generous support of the                                                  Middle Road Foundation.

Please see the Cameron Art Museum website for more details: 

Carrie Mae: An American Life premieres at Cameron Art Museum

Historic African American Schools: Why They Are Still Important

Click to help save the historic Lee Rosenwald School by donating support for a new roof!

Admittedly, it's irrational, how much time I have spent researching historic African American schools and documenting the stories of my elderly neighbors.  Many times, people ask me why it holds my interest.  The answer is multifaceted.  Sometimes the urgency of recording the stories is uppermost in my mind, especially when so many of my older friends are becoming ill and passing away.  Since I made "Under the Kudzu", my documentary about historic schools that Pender County's African American communities helped to create during segregation, six of the people I interviewed while researching that project have died.

At other times I think of my students, and how important it is for them and for my teaching colleagues to be aware of the rich educational history of our region.  I teach in a school where more than 90% of the students are African American, and whose families have deep roots in SENC.  My research helps me to teach with the confidence that education has always been important to their families.

At other times, I think of how profoundly my older friends have changed my life and viewpoint.  Once I was impatient, and thought mostly of what I had to say, but now I listen and strive to understand others.  Once I thought slavery and segregation were distant history, but now I know better, since so many people I know had the devastating effects of this history ripple through their lives.  Conversely, it gives me a window onto the determination and achievement of people in our region who had to sacrifice just to get an education, then turned around and became public servants.  

There hasn't been much broader awareness of the rich legacy of our historic African American schools until recently; I am happy to say that is changing.  Recently I was pleased to be able to help in a small way by contributing images of Pender County Training School for the wonderful installation at the Cameron Art Museum called "School Pride: The Eastern NC Story" (by Willie Cole, commissioned by the Countywide CDC of Navassa).  

Segregation was unjust, and the denial of equal resources to African American children was immoral, but learning about our students' family histories is not just a story of comparison and lack.  Our neighbors built vibrant school communities within severe budgetary and societal constraints.  Many of our most prominent local citizens graduated from these schools.  As educators and citizens, we need to pause and commemorate the rich educational heritage of our region.  We need to let our current students know that we understand that education already belongs to them, it is something that African American families have shaped and owned for generations.

Save the historic Lee Rosenwald School by donating support for a new roof!

Click here to get the new ebook "Rosenwald 

School Reflections: Documentation &

 Preservation" by Claudia Stack  

Alice Walker: Create Conversations between Students and Adults

Click to order a DVD copy of the film "Under the Kudzu" 

New!!! Click to get the new ebookRosenwald School Reflections: Documentation & Preservation by Claudia Stack  

I had the privilege, last week, to attend a session where Alice Walker took questions from the audience.  The issue of censorship arose, and she suggested that the impulse to censor arises from fear on the part of adults that just because students read something, they will imitate it.  However, she pointed out, literature about others' lives allows us to learn about other people's experiences, and it is unlikely we will imitate what we read.

Ms. Walker went on to say it might be helpful if students and adults could discuss the controversial literature in an honest way.  What do we fear about it?  Why?  What can we learn?

I have to concur that honest, meaningful discussion between students and adults is always desirable.  One thing I also wish is that kids had more opportunity and time to spend just listening to older folks.  This has been the impetus behind the oral history projects I have done with students.  Talking with senior citizens makes history alive and immediate.  It is one thing to learn about segregation or the Great Migration in a textbook, it is another to sit in a room and hear the experiences of those who lived it.  To be able to ask questions and realize that these events did NOT occur in ancient history.  

In historical terms, slavery and segregation are very recent. My current film project focuses on a woman who learned to value school from her grandmother, who was a born a slave and denied an education.  Should we suggest to her family that slavery occurred so long ago that its effects do not ripple to the present? 

Incredible things happen when we take time to listen to older people's stories, and especially when we include children. They learn to have more patience, and to be better listeners.  They can learn interviewing and research skills.  Most of all, they glimpse an important truth:  We are all part of one continuous whole.

The Faithful Teacher

Click to order a DVD copy of the film "Under the Kudzu" 

New!!! Click to get the new ebookRosenwald School Reflections: Documentation & Preservation by Claudia Stack  

Faith and devotional practice played important roles in Rosenwald schools.  Almost all of the dozens of Rosenwald school alumni I have interviewed have vivid memories of this, although the emphasis varies.  Some people spoke mostly about singing hymns, while others emphasized group prayer or reading scripture.  Andrew Corbett, a Canetuck alumnus who passed away last year, said he felt the teachers wanted them to learn "that you should love everybody."

Even more striking, Mr. Corbett remarked "Everyone should give reverence... to who you are and to your Creator."  It was this ethos, of self-knowledge coupled with a sense of higher origin (and purpose), that seems to embody the spiritual side of the Rosenwald school experience.

As a teacher today, it would not be considered appropriate for me to speak explicitly about God.  However, when I speak to my students I still try to convey my sense of their divine value.  In order to do this, it's important for me to prepare spiritually each day.  Here is part of my typical daily prayer:

Lord, we know with you all things are possible.  Bless and guide my thoughts, my words and my actions.  Help me to be a channel of your love and your peace.  Bless me and my colleagues, and help us to teach well.  Bless my students, and help them to focus and learn.  Help all of us to know Your love, that You are holding all of us in the palm of Your hand.  Amen.  

Looking Back in Order to Look Forward

                   Click to order a DVD copy of the film "Under the Kudzu" 

New!!! Click to get the new ebook Rosenwald School Reflections: Documentation & Preservation by Claudia Stack  

Reading Wendell Berry's book The Unsettling of America Culture & Agriculture, I am struck by parallels between the destruction of farming communities that he documents and the breakdown of community in schools.  As recently as fifty years ago, small family farms with diverse crops (both plant and animal) were still normal.  Factory farming has been pushing these small farmers out of operation ever since, although advocates of permaculture and organic farming are trying to turn the tide.

That thousands of family farms have been out-competed by factory farms has also resulted in the fragmentation of farming families who were invested in shepherding land and community.  I am struck by the similarity of language used by big agribusiness and online education companies.  They both promise great gains with less work, "work" being the one case the interaction of people with the land, in the other case the interaction of student with teacher.  But what if we are going in the wrong direction?  What if what is needed in education is not less human interaction, but more?  What if what is needed is really an increase in students' material and social responsibility?

In the rural, segregation-era schools that I have researched, both for blacks and whites (but particularly in Rosenwald schools), students had meaningful roles in the operation of the school.  They gathered wood, kept the fire going, pumped water, swept the floor and the yard.  The older students spent part of each day teaching the younger students.  Strikingly, none of the dozens of Rosenwald school alumni I have interviewed expressed resentment of the work they did.  Instead, it was a point of pride and an expression of community. 

What if, by taking responsibility and work away from students in order to free up more time for academic learning, we actually removed an important way of engaging students in school?  What if students need to feel valued and effective in order to attain an optimal frame of mind for learning?  What if the strict discipline of yesteryear only worked because it was paired with students' sense of meaningful connection to a larger whole? 

What if we could work towards recreating these communal connections to help students feel valued, and to allow them to use their abundant energy in constructive ways?  What if we need to look back to find our way forward?

Connecting with Students by Sharing School History

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" 

New!!! Click to get the new ebook Rosenwald School Reflections: Documentation & Preservation by Claudia Stack  

Why Rosenwald Schools Still Matter

Click to order a DVD copy of the film "Under the Kudzu" 

New!!! Click to get the new ebook Rosenwald School Reflections: Documentation & Preservation by Claudia Stack  

(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.

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.  

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 

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.

 

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?

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.