Title: Finding Common Concerns for the Children We Share: Rural and Black Families May Support Their Child's Education in Ways That Differ from Middle-Class Norms
Abstract: It is Thursday evening in Eutawville, our quaint little town in rural South Carolina. Unlike other days, Thursdays bring visible signs that the world is bigger than Eutawville. That's the day the county's bookmobile arrives with its hopes, dreams, and a way of escape. With fewer than 1,000 residents, Eutawville is too small to support an actual library shelved with hundreds of books, so we have to settle for the bookmobile with its special offerings of exotic places and people far different from my town, neighborhood, and the people I know. Eagerly, children wait to go in, two at a time, with library cards in hand. I am one of those children. The year is 1978, and I am a 2nd grader at Galliard Elementary School, the only elementary school in Eutawville. Galliard has an all-black student body and an all-black teaching force and administrative team. This school is reminiscent of communally bonded schools documented in the research by scholars such as Jerome Morris (1999) and Vanessa Siddle-Walker (1996). Mrs. Dukes, my 2nd-grade teacher, sparked a love of reading in me. I wanted to read lots of books because Mrs. Dukes said reading would make me smarter and take me to faraway places that I may not get to see otherwise. Mrs. Dukes (not her real name), like many of the black educators of the time, was very influential in the lives of her students. She was the embodiment of the type of educators Siddle-Walker (2000), Jacqueline Jordan Irvine (2003), and Geneva Gay, (2010) captured in their scholarship on black teachers who have been successful working with black children. Each Thursday, I relentlessly begged my mother to take me to the bookmobile. My mother never said no because she believed in what Mrs. Dukes wanted for me. My mother was deeply involved and supportive of my academic development outside of school. She always made time to take me to the bookmobile, the local museum, zoos, and historic parks. She reveled in my accomplishments and always talked with my brother and me about the importance of an education. My mother, my teachers, and other relatives were the network of support that opened doors to other networks that set my feet on the pathway to college and a career in education. But educators and scholars often fail to recognize the roles that mothers and families like mine played and continue to play. Fast forward to the present. I am principal at a Title I school in rural South Carolina, very much like the school I attended as a child. The landscape has changed as have some of the perceptions that teachers hold about families. As educators, we are most likely to value middle-class parenting and two-parent family structures. However, the roles that families play and the networks they build for their children are similar to those from my childhood. This article draws on my experiences growing up a black child in rural South Carolina and includes my experiences as an administrator and my observations as a researcher. From these collective experiences, I am beginning to understand the ways that rural black families display involvement in their children's lives that are often absent from the mainstream discourse on parent involvement. Morris and Monroe (2009) note the need for more research on the experiences of black students growing up in the rural South, since most of the nation's black population resides there. Perhaps by sharing my discoveries, other teachers will rethink their assumptions about minority children and their families, particularly those who are poor and live in rural, southern communities, and they can begin to explore new ways of learning from and with the children and the families they serve. Learn from families Sandra, a black and middle-class 3rd-grade teacher at my school, walks into my office looking frustrated. She has just had a retention conference with Devonte's mother and doesn't know how to proceed. His mom never darkened these doors to even come and check on Devonte. …
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-05-01
Language: en
Type: article
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