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| Septima Clark |
Here's how I want to do this. I'm going to read a passage from my novel Though An Army Come Against Us and then I will answer all your questions. At least I'll answer all the questions I can until the bell rings at the end of the class period. So settle in and here goes.
Johns Island South Carolina1916
November 27
So much of note has happened since yesterday that I must confide it all to the pages of this teaching journal before the intensity of the memories fades! I want to be able to refer later to these notes. I also hope that by putting them in writing I can clarify my thinking on these events.
For the last two months (has it really been such a short time?) I have been busy taking in new sights and sounds; I have done precious little reflection. When I re-read my first impressions now they seem all wrong: it is as if I was seeing everything through the lens of Mother’s prejudices about two-for-five folk instead of looking at the living people who were in front of my eyes.
I have been utterly preoccupied with what Promise Land School does not have! We do not have a chalkboard or chalk. We have no books of any kind. The school lacks even stout walls to keep out the cold winds of autumn! The privy smells. The well is suspect. Miss Ivy and I must chop wood for the stove every morning. We are cast out on this island and – in my worst moments – I despair that nobody remembers our presence here.
But yesterday I remembered our blessings. In the morning, before worship, Mr. Flood Wilson came up to me and asked, “Miss Seppy, would you be willing to teach reading to some of the men after their working hours?” How quick I had been to dismiss them all as without ambition! They work so hard in all weathers and yet they are prepared to make time for elementary education! I am ashamed of myself for seeing them in such a bad light.
During worship I prayed that Jesus would help me to discern the blessings in our challenges here. It came to me as a revelation: if the school board never visits, then we are free to teach the children what we want. If they do not provide us with books, then we are free to use whatever we can. And if they value the children so little as not to know even how many they are, then we are free to value each one as if he or she were our own. I felt unchained by these epiphanies, as if a great weight has been lifted from me.
This morning even splitting and stacking fuel for the school stove felt like light work. I nailed a large paper bag to the front wall of my classroom, and once the children were seated and I had called the roll I asked, “Who will tell me a story?”
My request met with silence. This was not what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to say things to them and then make them parrot my words. I was supposed to write things down and make them read those things back. I was not supposed to ask them to say anything to me other than what I had already said to them. And so they sat mute. I was quite certain they had heard me, so, instead of repeating my request I waited in silence.
After an uncomfortably long time, perhaps a full minute, Junie Harris asked, with a laugh, “You want to hear a story, Miss Seppy?”
My heart sank. I dreaded what I would hear now. He is the rudest and crudest of boys. But I had opened this door so now I had to give him a chance. “Yes, Junie. Please tell us your story.”
With a smirk, Junie began. I copy this now directly from the paper bag, where I wrote as he spoke: in his words, as he told it. “Once there been a Ibo man what been a great fiddler. He know better than all them people what for do with a fiddle. When he lean back and draw he bow, nobody can keep from shuffle he foot. One day he going for play at a party. He have he fiddle in a bag. Bruh Bear and Bruh Tiger take he track and run him through a swamp. The man was scared, but he wouldn’t drop he fiddle. He climb a tree and fix himself in a branch. Bruh Tiger begin for crawl up the tree for catch him. The man holler and try for scare the beast, but he wasn’t scared. He keep on the climb up.
“Then the man draw he fiddle and he bow and begin for play with all he strength. Bruh Tiger obliged for stop for listen to him and the tune sweeten Bruh Tiger. He turn around and come down the tree. Him and Bruh Bear grab hands and set in for dance. The faster the fiddler play, the faster them dance. Them gone round and round till them dead tired. At length them drop for ground for catch them wind. The fiddler slip down the tree and leave. Bruh Tiger and Bruh Bear ain’t have strength for follow him and so he music save him.”
I wrote this on the paper bag as he spoke. I wrote it just as he spoke it. I wrote “he” for “his,” “ain’t” for “didn’t,” and “Bruh” for “Brother.” Several times I asked him to wait to let me catch up. He looked suspicious… or maybe just puzzled. The other children laughed again and again. They laughed at Junie’s story and – I think – at the fact that I allowed him to tell it without interruption or reprimand.
When he was done the class was silent again. I called on Mazalea Gaddis, my best reader: “Mazalea, will you come forward and read Junie’s story?” And, to the awed wonderment of the class, she did just that, from my penciled notes on the paper bag, exactly as he had told it!
I asked, “Who else will come forward and read Junie’s story?” This time it was me who was dumb with awestruck wonder, because who should raise his hand but Hamilton Brown, who the boys call Bubba! I had seen no indication before today that Hamilton knew so much as his alphabet. Each time I called on him he silently shook his head no. But here he was, confidently walking forward.
I was right. He could not read the words written on the paper bag. But he stood facing his classmates and repeated what Junie said (and what Mazalea read) almost word for word! Bubba was a prodigy. His memory was astounding.
Two more children read Junie’s story aloud to the class, haltingly and with a few errors. Throughout, Junie sat with a smile of great satisfaction and pride. As I write these words I remember our readings in Pestalozzi back at Avery Institute. He said it may be smart to pay attention to some children more than others, but it’s not right. Pestalozzi said I owe it to the child to give him more than what is necessary for what I imagine will be his station in life. But this goes way beyond recognizing Junie and his gifts. Because giving the children what is necessary (or more) implies that I am the one who holds everything of value. Have I truly been seeing any of the children of Promise Land School? Or have I only seen what I think they lack? Have I seen any of the adults of Johns Island? Or have I only seen the turnips they plant in their yards where I would put roses?
There was one more revelation, too. After school I planned a home visit to Sibbie Rivers to discuss her academic progress with her mother. This time I checked with the Allens before embarrassing myself calling the mother by the child’s surname. Sibbie’s mother is Mrs. Eva Singleton. I ate dinner at the Allens before going. I do not like to impose on people for food when they seem to have so little themselves.
Mrs. Singleton was just serving a crab stew to her four daughters when I arrived. And who should be sitting at the table with them? Sibbie’s classmate, Blue Gamble! I have not written much in these pages about Blue. He is mostly silent in class and likes to sit hunched down on his bench as if to reduce his chances of being seen by me. Seeing him at Sibbie’s house made me wonder why he wasn’t eating in his own home.
And then I remembered: Blue may speak infrequently, but every time he does, it is about food. In early September I gave the children a spelling test. I called out the word “fish.” Blue immediately yelled, “Porgies be def!” Once during recess Exodus Jefferson told the boys about tripping on a tree root on his way to school. Blue asked, “Did you drop your lunch?” I wondered, have I ever seen Blue carrying or eating lunch?
Mrs. Singleton generously ladled out a second helping of stew. Boys and their appetites! How many other mothers are feeding Blue Gamble?
I am ashamed of the judgments I was so quick to make on my first days on this island. The people along Bohicket Creek make so much of so little. They are generous with me and I have responded to their open hands with mean-spirited condescension. I pledge myself to do better.
And that's what I want to share with you today. Does anybody have any questions?
Are you a teacher?
It comes across in the writing, I guess. Yes, I am. I taught for twenty-five years before I ever considered becoming a principal. Then I was a principal for ten years after that.
So these are your experiences?
Well, I would have to say both yes and no. I taught in the Bronx, not South Carolina. And I started teaching in 1974, not 1916. I had students named Junie Harris and Blue Gamble, but they weren't actually like the boys in the story with those names. But those stories about Blue are true stories, just about a boy with a different name.
What about writing your kids' stories on a paper bag instead of using a reader?
Now that is a great question. I always had a chalkboard in my classroom so I never needed to use a paper bag. But I started learning to teach when I was 17, and I learned from the beginning to write the children's own stories down and let them read those stories back to me. And it was Miss Seppy who invented that way of teaching, fifty years before I learned it! That was her idea!
Wait... Miss Seppy is real?
Mrs. Septima Clark was a public school teacher in South Carolina for forty years. She was fired because she refused to stop fighting for civil rights, and they took her retirement away from her, too. But then she started teaching citizenship schools and training other people to teach, including adults who had only just learned to read. Martin Luther King, Jr. called her the Mother of the Movement.
She was a friend of Martin Luther King?
Again, yes and no. They worked very closely together for years. But she also had to argue with him - a lot - because he and his friends thought that men should always be the leaders but she knew that women can be great leaders, too.
I'm confused now. Our teacher said your book is a novel. But now you're telling us all these things are true. So which is it: fiction or non-fiction?
That's another great question. My book is what you call historical fiction, meaning that it is a story based on true events of the past. I imagine some of the characters. I imagine most of the dialogue. But the larger events really happened.
So why didn't you just write the history?
These are the best questions. One reason is that I wanted these people from history to really come to life for you. Sometimes the best way to do that is fiction; sometimes fiction is more true in that way than non-fiction. Also, I wanted to connect different stories that really didn't connect in real life. Like when Miss Seppy asks Junie to tell a story. I wanted to show how a really good teacher brings the children's lives and ideas into the classroom instead of just telling them to be quiet and listen to her. In another chapter in this book a Native American teacher in South Dakota lets the children tell him stories in their own language and then asks them to write them in English. Then there's a chapter where a teacher in Texas asks the children to learn science by watching the weather and by looking at the birds and bugs in the field around the school. In real life these three teachers never met each other or talked about their ideas together. But by putting those chapters near each other in my book I hope you get some ideas about good teaching.
Can you read us another chapter?
Thank you so much for asking that! You really make me feel appreciated! But the truth is that I have to go visit the classroom next door and read to them. Maybe I can visit you again the next time I'm in Delaware. And thanks for your great welcome!
Are you a teacher?
It comes across in the writing, I guess. Yes, I am. I taught for twenty-five years before I ever considered becoming a principal. Then I was a principal for ten years after that.
So these are your experiences?
Well, I would have to say both yes and no. I taught in the Bronx, not South Carolina. And I started teaching in 1974, not 1916. I had students named Junie Harris and Blue Gamble, but they weren't actually like the boys in the story with those names. But those stories about Blue are true stories, just about a boy with a different name.
What about writing your kids' stories on a paper bag instead of using a reader?
Now that is a great question. I always had a chalkboard in my classroom so I never needed to use a paper bag. But I started learning to teach when I was 17, and I learned from the beginning to write the children's own stories down and let them read those stories back to me. And it was Miss Seppy who invented that way of teaching, fifty years before I learned it! That was her idea!
Wait... Miss Seppy is real?
Mrs. Septima Clark was a public school teacher in South Carolina for forty years. She was fired because she refused to stop fighting for civil rights, and they took her retirement away from her, too. But then she started teaching citizenship schools and training other people to teach, including adults who had only just learned to read. Martin Luther King, Jr. called her the Mother of the Movement.
She was a friend of Martin Luther King?
Again, yes and no. They worked very closely together for years. But she also had to argue with him - a lot - because he and his friends thought that men should always be the leaders but she knew that women can be great leaders, too.
I'm confused now. Our teacher said your book is a novel. But now you're telling us all these things are true. So which is it: fiction or non-fiction?
That's another great question. My book is what you call historical fiction, meaning that it is a story based on true events of the past. I imagine some of the characters. I imagine most of the dialogue. But the larger events really happened.
So why didn't you just write the history?
These are the best questions. One reason is that I wanted these people from history to really come to life for you. Sometimes the best way to do that is fiction; sometimes fiction is more true in that way than non-fiction. Also, I wanted to connect different stories that really didn't connect in real life. Like when Miss Seppy asks Junie to tell a story. I wanted to show how a really good teacher brings the children's lives and ideas into the classroom instead of just telling them to be quiet and listen to her. In another chapter in this book a Native American teacher in South Dakota lets the children tell him stories in their own language and then asks them to write them in English. Then there's a chapter where a teacher in Texas asks the children to learn science by watching the weather and by looking at the birds and bugs in the field around the school. In real life these three teachers never met each other or talked about their ideas together. But by putting those chapters near each other in my book I hope you get some ideas about good teaching.
Can you read us another chapter?
Thank you so much for asking that! You really make me feel appreciated! But the truth is that I have to go visit the classroom next door and read to them. Maybe I can visit you again the next time I'm in Delaware. And thanks for your great welcome!
