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The personal story that Dr. House Soremekum, author of Lessons from Down Under, tells is very close to home for me.  I was raised in a small town also in Alabama and it was similar to the size of Lanett where she was raised. Though she grew up during the time of the civil rights era, my experiences with schooling and having a formal education were the same concepts as hers. The high school I attended was predominantly white and I was, for the most part, the only Black in my honors classes. Many times, just as Dr. House Soremekum had, my White counterparts would say, “You are the smartest Black girl at this school”. At the time I thought nothing of it but by my senior year of high school I did find this “compliment” very problematic. See, I knew a lot of my Black peers were more than able to accomplish the same goals as I had. But a lot of them were seen as trouble makers or they did not obtain some of the same opportunities as I had because of family issues. By saying this, I was really just a regular student who was put on a pedestal because of the color of my skin.  

Another point Dr. House Soremekum addressed, was about formal literacy. While I was growing up, formal literacy was always a stipend in my everyday life. My great-grandparents, especially my great- grandfather, took the initiative to insure their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren received an education. My great-grandfather was an ex-military man and a pastor. He traveled a lot while he pastured and sometimes I was able to go. Most of my formal upbringing was through the church. I was never allowed to address an elder by his/her first name. I had to be well mannered and dressed in order to attend church with my great- grandparents. If I was to step out of line I would get punished for doing so. Today, I do not believe most children receive the same formal literacy training as before. Formal literacy was very important to be able to communicate and function with others in society. The media is taking part in this “backward” swing of formal literacy because a lot of people are not valuing their educational rights that those before them fought so hard to obtain.

That's Not My Mom, That's My Teacher!

In today’s world of schooling, many teachers believe they are only supposed to parrot a bunch of information to their students to fulfill the job of teaching. However, according to Sunny-Marie Birney, African-American female professors possess characteristics that make their teaching style not only intellectually engaging but also motherly.

In Voices of Our Foremothers: Celebrating the Legacy of African-American Women Educators, Birney explains why her Black women professors in college filled the void of the Black mother she never had in her life. She says that they, “cared not only about [her] academic work and the adjustments [she] was making at the collegiate level, but they were concerned overall with [her] mind, body, and spirit, past, present, and future” (Birney 50). Where did this motherly aspect of Black female educators derive from? It comes from the many years that Black women have had to be the primary caregivers of their families and communities. During slavery and post-slavery days, African-American women were the backbones who were responsible for looking out for the well being of everybody under their wings. That same attitude has been passed down from generation to generation and is embedded in the African-American women educators of today.

Some may question the idea of a teacher teaching a student as if that student were there own child. Shouldn’t a teacher just teach the student what is required for them to learn and leave it at that? People may argue the affirmative to that question. On the other hand, I believe a student can benefit more from a motherly teacher. When a teacher shows they truly care about a student’s success inside and outside of the classroom, I feel it pushes a student to want to do the best they can do. It’s even been proven by Jacqueline Johnson Irvine in a study she did for an article she wrote. The compassionate methods Black women teachers use to educate their students may be very foreign to some, but it can inspire students and even increase their success in school.