Tea Time with Teachers

In " Voices of our Foremothers: Celebrating the Legacy of African-American Women Educators," Sunny-Marie Birney describes how she felt growing up having been adopted people of Euro-American descent.  She says that she feels like a motherless child because she was never able to connect her parents.  When she began going to school her African-American profesors really connected with her and she felt that they were like her mothers.  They impacted her life and made lasting impressions. 

 I just wanted to highlight the importance of having a relationship with professors.  In college I feel that it is important for teachers and students to form relationships.  Every student is different and teachers should respect that.  I agree with Jacqueline Jordan Irvine that students perform the best when their teachers care for them.  Personally I do better when I know that my teacher cares about me.  This is one of the reasons why I love Spelman.  It is not a big school, so teachers actually know me by name.  I know that the teachers care about me because if I have been absent, they ask " is everything ok?"  They may shoot me an email about it or something. A lot of professors at bigger schools do not even know your name.  Teachers and students should make the same effort in trying to develop a relationship.  Students should go to office hours not only when you need help, but just to stop by and find out about their life.  My calculus teacher and I have a good relationship.  I go to her when I need help and just to talk.  She watches BET's The Game just like I do and we bond over that.  Knowing your teacher will come along way.  Your professor may be able to get you that intership that you wanted, and you may need a recommendation.  So I challenge you to get to know your teachers.

Downtrodden, but not broken!!

This discussion concerning how becoming an educated African American has created a more concentrated effort to be sure I do not take my educational access for granted any longer.  In “Lessons From Down Under: Reflections on Meanings of Literacy and Knowledge From an African American Female growing up in Rural Alabama," Besse House –Soremekun vividly describes the hardship and tedious journey we had to endure in the South. 

She explains three different types of situations that contributed to some of the problems as well as the success of becoming literate. 

1)       (Problem) Due to slavery and race (being an African American), early access to literacy was denied or not given the best of what was offered.  We all know that learning how to read and write was forbidden during slavery.  Then to make matters worse, after the end of slavery, African Americans attended and even developed their own school; however, we still did not have the best school equipment and text books. 

2)      ( Problem) Written and Unwritten Laws:  In the South, during the Civil Rights era, laws known as “Jim Crow” laws were created. This law stated that African Americans were “separate but equal”, which allowed blacks access to restaurants, buses, public facilities and schools but had to sit in a separate area (63).  For instance, if we did ride the bus, we had to sit in the back.  The affects of this law is where the unwritten law came into effect.

One problem was that within the school system, there was no African American literature to glean from. 

Besse states “the message I interpreted from such forms of inequality was that Black people were unequal to Whites and had minimal value” (63). 

3)      ( Success) Oral Tradition was highly regarded as very important.  African Americans held on to their oral tradition in order to keep the culture alive.  By doing this, we were able to pass down our history and also teach one another life issues. 

The South really helped develop a determination in our ancestors which has been carried down to our generation.  Despite the hostile environment we had to endure to become equal, we still were able to keep the “fire” alive in us. 

Just Dont Get It the First Time

              In the essay, Unearthing Hidden Literacy: Seven Lessons I Learned in a Cotton Field,  Lillie Smith recounts one of her most distinct childhood memories of picking cotton at her aunt’s house. At the time she could not see how picking cotton could be beneficial to her life. As the years went by and Smith continued her education, she took a course entitled Black Women’s Literacy which opened her eyes. While taking the course, she learned about different female activist who endured similar negative situations and had something positive as their outcome. The course work she was given allowed her to assess the situation and thus view how she had grown from that experience.

                Sometimes it takes a while for a person to see that what they are going through can possibly have a positive outcome. For example, all throughout middle and high school my parents would always tell me not to procrastinate. I thought they just wanted me to get out their face and do some work, but the night before that assignment was due I was rushing and stressed, and everything was all bad. My parents would simply say, “didn’t I tell you to do your work ahead of time.”  At that moment I would realize that they were right and if I would have done my work when they told me too I would not be in that predicament. Since this occurred on many occasions, I should have learned my lesson the first time, but for whatever reason I did not. Now whenever I get long term assignments,  I do my best to start them early because of my many mishaps in middle and high school.

Oh No..Not with my Money...

I really enjoyed Star Parker's " My Life as a Welfare Brat."  It allowed me to see how people live on welfare and not even give a damn.  They party and carry on with their lives for basically the price of nothing.  I always thought that folks were ashamed and embarrassed to be on welfare, but it seems like those new Jordans that everyone wants and brags about.    I especially like when she went on the Oprah Winfrey show to debate the women on welfare, women that have the same mindset like she used to have.  Of course she can speak on it, she has lived it , abused it, and she has learned from it.  As far as sympathy for these types of women, it depends on the circumstances.  We feel sorry for her up to a certain point, but once we know that she , she gets no sympathy.   

Oprah asks " Why must we have to see her on the street?"  I for one believe that just because she is not on welfare, does not mean she will be in the streets.  She could try to get help from family, but I also know how family can be judgemental and hypocritical.  Some women would rather struggle than seek help from their family and they could very well have their legitimate reasons. Being on welfare is not bad or lazy.  It becomes bad and lazy when someone starts to take advantage of it and does not do anything to better themselves.  Why should I, as a taxpayer, work my butt off while someone is at home sucking up the lemonade.  It does not work like that.  You are going to get your lazy behind up and do something with your life. At least strive to do better for your children if not for yourself.   

Black Women on Welfare

In this essay Sandra Golden is highlighting the downfalls of the welfare system and its nonchalant treatment of its customers, especially black females. She talks about the group of women she studied and their experiences with the system. All of their experiences were negative, “it seemed the assumptions was that welfare recipients were unmotivated, unskilled, uneducated or undereducated, and responsible for bringing fatherless children into the world” (Golden 27). Despite the attitudes of the caseworkers, the women could not respond with the first thing that came to their mind because that response could result in the loss of any assistance they were receiving.

In her conclusion Golden speaks about how she was a recipient of welfare. Now she is confidently standing on her own two feet and her daughter has grown up to be a positive addition to the world. Many understand the hardships of welfare either from personal experience or how it is portrayed throughout the media, but what needs to be shown is the positive side and more success stories.

Who Am I?

In Mandi Chikombero's "Dysfunctional Literacies of Exclusion: An Exploration of the Burdens of Literacy in Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions", examines the burden of literacy among the women of the Zimbabwe's culture.

"Look what they've done to us....I'm not one of them but I'm not one of you."  --Nyasha in Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions (1988). 
This question/statement poses an Identity issue, not literacy. 

According to Chikombero, literacy has been defined as "the ability to read and write, or the state of being knowledgeable or competent.  It speaks to a deep understanding of one's environment and one's ability to exist in and uphold that environment (150). 
In the context of Nervous Conditions, the characters described all had some form of literarcy, be it traditional (oral traditions, myths, legends, folktales,songs, and dance(151) or colonial (academic(153).  But after further reading, having both or just one type of literacy, the woman were struggling with who they were within their form of literacy. 
Tambu is the main character of the story.  Surrounding Tambu was her mother( traditional and passive ), her aunt ( traditional but not passive), her aunt (traditional and colonial but passive) and her cousin (traditional and colonial but aggressive).  Tambu learns that having either form of literacy really did not change your role in society. So in the end, the woman must discover who they are within their literacy confinements.  Discovery of who you are is the main issue.  These woman were very aware of their role, now they needed to learn who they were and how to best use that knowledge to live life out in the culture that they were in. 
That is why I pose the question of "Who am I?" 

Transformative College Literacy

The following is a quote from Lauryn, a first semester peer counselor, senior biology pre-medicine major from Fall 2002. “I think [being alliterate Black woman] means to be independent, not to be dependent on anybody to provide for you because you can do things for yourself. Knowledge is power, so if you’re literate you can make your own way. It’s freedom. You can do whatever you want to do. It doesn’t limit. The possibilities open up.”

                Literacy, which has been a reoccurring theme throughout this course, is essential to life. Robin Wisniewski, author of ‘Transformative College Literacy of Literate Black Women Peer Counselors’, spoke specifically about the challenges of college students who have disabilities or are the first in their family to go to college, and how she orchestrated peer tutor groups to help out these students.  Wisniewski thought helping out these students was a pressing topic that needed to be addressed in order for them to have the same freedoms as everyone else.

                Before reading this essay it never really occurred to me that there were people who do not have the same literacy skills as my friends and family. I too think it is important to help everyone reach the same level of literacy. I can only imagine the struggles someone with lack-luster literacy skills would have to go through. With the number of highly educated men and women in this world there is no reason why there should be people without basic literacy skills.