The interesting thing to me about the current Critical Race Theory discussion is that its supporters seem to be divided as well as its opponents. There are a lot of “formally educated” people on both sides of the controversy and there are people educated by life skills and practicality. There are white people who argue for it and black people who speak against it. There are rich and poor on both sides. There are calm people and angry people on both sides… much like all the other current conflicts.
But… the visceral rhetoric MUST stop. It is getting us nowhere except angrier and meaner.
I remember realizing in 1969, when I was starting college, that we CANNOT regulate OR purchase kindness. These things come from the heart. And only God can change that and only if we want it changed. No laws can force people to be kind. No amount of money thrown at a problem can solve the deep rooted idea that I am a victim. “I want and should have everything that you have and if I don’t, it is not fair and it is your fault”. If we were to remove ALL the selfish ambitions at play and truly try to see life through the eyes of others, this would not be such a mess. But it seems to me that in our affluence and freedom, we have forgotten where we came from and how we got here. On the other hand, many of us have decided someone else – or the government – owes us a living!
When I had moved to NC in 1997, I entered a high school as a Cross-Catergorical Special Education teacher. I was blessed with an amazing young black woman as my assistant. Carla is still my friend and went on later to work in a doctor’s office. It was the first year Charlotte began bussing students from the “projects”, as the students called, them to more ‘white’ schools. This was an attempt to bring racial balance throughout the system. It was culture shock for white and black students. I found that Cross-Catergorical simply meant students who didn’t fit comfortably anywhere else could be put there. I had fifteen students whose problems included behavior, English as “not their language at all”, mentally disabled, physically disabled, autism, anger management, visual impairment and others. There was no established curriculum nor clear expectations except that the front office would not like to hear from us. And yet, we were to follow the requirement of an Individual Education Plan for each student.
“Rough start” only touches the tip of the iceberg. Learning the Exceptional Children’s paperwork for a new state was a feat in itself. Creating curriculum was a nightmare at first. I began to look at practical skills and was assigned to the NC Task Force for the Occupational Course of Study for developing such a curriculum and it had some fantastic goals and a reasonable structure. Once my students realized that I actually liked them and wanted to do some interesting, real work with them, we made progress. We had the wonderful cooperation of Davidson College to allow the students to be mentored and trained by cafeteria, laundry and maintenance workers on campus. The students began to know they mattered – and could develop skills. When I explained that I wanted to visit their homes, they looked at me like I had three eyes and a tail. My black students and my Asian student told me I could NOT go to their neighborhoods without a gun because of the gangs. I remember M saying, “You gonna come back in a wheel chair. Don’t go.” I had a sixteen year-old black student who was beautiful, articulate and had definite leadership qualities. I soon discovered his frustration stemmed from the fact that he had never learned to read. He was bright. He did not belong in my class. He learned to read with some of one-on-one instruction; he was dyslexic, but having been labeled for mentally disabled for years, there was no way he could change to regular classes and graduate. So we did what we could. I don’t know what happened to T after he went back to Dillahay Court.
Later, when I was privileged to become a teacher at Mooresville High School, I found my dream job. Though there were still problems with students being misidentified, I had for the most part, Educable Mentally Disabled students. This label at least acknowledges the ability to learn and be productive citizens, but not able to pass the rigorous expectations of classes that led to credits for a state diploma in the Standard Course of Study. This group was truly diverse and I fell in love with every one of them, even the difficult ones. I was able to continue the relationship with Davidson College adding other businesses in this town to our training sites and most of these early students have continued in their full time jobs earned via their OCS training till today (twenty years later).
A very special day arrived when my mother asked me, “How many blacks do you have?” She was a retired teacher and this had been a common question in her years teaching reading in a Title 1 school. The truth is, it irritated me – until I tried to answer. I could not tell her. I couldn’t even picture the students in my mind with a color of skin on their faces. I tried and it just was’t there. Through my experiences of fighting for their rights to be treated as valuable in the sight of others and loving them just for who they were with me, I had become color-blind.
After all those years of change and challenge, the only thing that mattered to me was that each child see his or her own importance, potential and inherent value. And I realized that I knew other teachers with the same kinds of attitudes. I was 55.
Mother Factors 