Part I of III
Preoccupied with the struggle to develop and maintain a sense of “family” with respectful, responsible children, my parents did not know how to develop learners. When my peers were crawling into bed at 9 p.m., I was jumping in the car for a late night family game of bowling. My peers were sitting at a clean, well-lit table doing math problems for homework, but I, like my mom, was talking on the phone, watching television, or cleaning house. My life at home and at school never intersected so models of life-long learning did not exist. Nothing reinforced or added value to what happened at school. Boarding the bus at the end of the day, I left learning in its natural place, at school.
My parents did not know how to prepare me to be a learner, but my mom gave me what she could—access to what she knew existed: better. She knew a world of wealth existed outside the parameters of our neighborhood—that somewhere tucked away in the middle class neighborhoods things looked better: better cars, better houses, better schools, and if I was going to be successful, I would have to have better. Her awareness of better has made all the difference. Ruby Payne, in her book Poverty: A Framework for Understanding and Working with Students and Adults from Poverty, says knowing “the hidden rules/norms” of a class allows the person to shift upward into that class. (Payne, 9) My mom didn’t finish college, but she knew that for me to finish, I’d need the most basic of those norms. I’d have to “talk/dress/act right,” “look people in the eyes when they are talking to you,” and “shake hands like you mean business.” And on those days when I was testing to attend those better schools, we’d wake up early, iron and lay out my clothes, spend a little extra time on my hair, and have breakfast. (Even then she was teaching me school/learning was something I put on rather than a natural a part of me.) The schools had clean, carpeted halls, lockers without locks, and noticeably more salt than pepper. There I was taught and surrounded by the wealthy, upper class, who lived the life my mom wanted for me. By sharing learning space with this class of people, I would learn to speak the language of affluent Americans and live the American way, having a chance at a “better life.” She didn’t know how to bring learning home, because that’s a middle class norm; she did, however, know how to discipline me when I brought home anything below a B, because that is a lower class norm (Payne). Consequently, I learned to stay afloat and fit in, and that seemed to be enough even through college.
But what I realized at _____ University changed the lenses through which I view my educational life. The only thing that separated me from every other kid in my neighborhood was the access my mother had given me. In an education course, we were learning why kids, specifically minority children, underperformed: low socioeconomic status, perils of the inner city, and parents too overwhelmed with life to appreciate or understand the value of schooling. I realized they were talking about me, who I could have been had my mother not been the granddaughter of a housekeeper of a wealthy white family. They would have been talking about me, had my mother not seen better. From that moment on, I devoted myself to not only giving kids, like me, access, but also imparting upon them the value of education. My life experiences had purpose; I knew and could share the norms of mainstream America with those who had no real knowledge of the world beyond their socioeconomic class. My first lesson in teaching came during an observation when the teacher asked if I would escort a disruptive student to the office. Along the walk to the principal’s, I asked why he was acting out, and he replied, “She don’t care about me. That white woman don’t know nothin’ about me. Why should I listen to her?” That conversation affected my remaining years as an undergrad. I became increasingly sensitive to the small number of professors who cared, taught curriculum relevant to my life, and modeled learning/teaching in a way I would want to imitate. If the professor doesn’t know me, how can he know how to help me learn? How can a tenured person giving 10 year-old lectures be interested in my learning? If he doesn’t hear me over the sound of his own voice, how can he know what/if I am thinking? What type of education was I really getting?
