The supreme court decision of 1954 ruled that separate schools were inherently unequal and unconstitutional. Thus began the civil rights movement that swept across the nation throughout the sixties and seventies. When I graduated college in 1968 and began teaching in Nashville, Tennessee at E…
The supreme court decision of 1954 ruled that separate schools were inherently unequal and unconstitutional. Thus began the civil rights movement that swept across the nation throughout the sixties and seventies. When I graduated college in 1968 and began teaching in Nashville, Tennessee at East Nashville High School, the equal rights movement provided the setting for a personal voyage that has served me well throughout my life.
Growing up in an East Tennessee small town, I had very few chances to even see a black person. When we went to the movies in my small hometown, I knew that the balcony was where black people were allowed to watch the movie, but I never gave the situation much thought. I learned that black students were bussed to a school somewhere, not close to our town; I did not know where that was.
As I began teaching in Nashville, citizens daily clashed throughout the city and in the schools about issues of bussing and integration. That year, 1968, was the first year that East Nashville High School became integrated. As the local black high school was closed, practically overnight the East High student population became 40% black and 60% white.
Our faculty was comprised of teachers already on staff at East Nashville High School, teachers that were included from the original all black high school, and at least one young white teacher fresh out of college. Our black and white classroom teachers and administrators attended a number of in-service training programs about human relations relative the needs of cultural harmony and academic equality. Those were high energy and sometimes contentious training programs.
In the midst of the turmoil and challenges, I was fortunate to work with a young black student who epitomized a student level of high ideals and aspirations, talent, intellect, and positive attitude that we needed and called upon to help lead our young people to more harmonious co-existence. She was in a couple of my English classes, my speech classes, and the National Forensic League (NFL) club which I was assigned to coach. She was popular in the student body and won a number of class officer elections. I coached her through three years of NFL local, state, and national tournaments. Two years in a row she and I traveled to the national tournaments of the NFL. She was a national finalist one year and again in the next year she was a finalist and won third place in the national tournament at Stanford University.
It is therefore, an honor and a source of personal pride that I have witnessed her shining success as an actress, world-wide leader in human rights efforts, and most famously known for her television show, The Oprah Winfrey Show
Andrea. I have heard Oprah speak so many times about teachers and giving credit and kudos to them for inspiring and leading so many young people, including herself, to embracing their potential that they had not recognized up to that point.
I’m so proud of you, fellow educator. Our work is important beyond measure.
I taught for decades in our public school system and then, after nominal retirement, for a decade in what is called the independent school system. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to take over a dying school for gifted children and help bring it back to rude good health.
The first point is a given, for any serious teacher. I can think of no more fortunate circumstance in life than to have been a teacher as a vocation. Those who have been understand instantly what I mean when I say that teaching is a privilege of the highest order. Children are a wellspring of energy for teachers. They see the world in an inspiringly fresh way. Unless one is hardened to the point of sclerosis, teachers are changed forever by lessons of the greatest importance, each “taught” by a child who is just being his or her real self. We become fuller better human beings through teaching and receive much more than we give.
Yet our influence in children is hauntingly strong and as often as not a teacher does not know the students whom (s)he has influenced the most. Ask an adult of any age which teacher influenced their life the most, and they will instantly remember. Stories will gush from them. It is humbling and a little bit frightening to know what influence one can wield - for good or otherwise.
I have mixed feelings about the private vs public school system. In Canada, there is a greater range of teaching competence in public schools than in the private system by and large. The power of unions to protect teachers of limited energy, intellectual scope, goodwill, or moral values is shockingly strong. I say that with a heavy heart because I am a union supporter through and through and held executive positions in our teacher’s union. My wife and I put all of our children through public schools, but I didn’t hesitate to go to the guidance department and ask for changes to my child’s timetable if I knew that teacher would have a malign influence on them. We desperately wanted them to retain a love for learning for their lifetimes and knew there were teachers who effortlessly snuffed it out in their students. Yet they were never fired and inspections were token for the most part.
I would learn that the private school system was massively different. In two years at what is likely Canada’s most prestigious schools for girls, I had my eyes opened. The school was swimming in money, reputation, and “best practices”. But it was, when one scratched beneath the surface, a brutally Darwinian place, for both teachers and students. Teachers were paid well and treated like shit - in an upper crust sort of way of course. They could be fired with minimal notice - in fact I knew through chance that one was about to be fired before she did.
Most students looked through you rather than at you - to them it was natural to see their teachers as being on a par with other hired help their parents engaged - useful insofar as you taught what needed to be learned.
There was corruption - both large and small scale. Parents bought their way in with “special donations”, when their child didn’t qualify in the first place. The school’s reputation rose and fell on its global results on the province’s standardized testing. Naturally teachers in the tested subject areas taught to the test - a soul crushing experience. Naturally certain parents were discreetly contacted and it was discussed whether it might be better for their *sensitive* (read ‘not too bright’) daughter to stay home on those test days. Not surprisingly, that school always succeeded brilliantly and was able to use that as a lure to attract the next group of kids.
The teachers were uniformly competent and never much more, as far as I could see. The administration molded them to fit the school’s image - bright, perky, unfailingly pleasant, hard working, good with parents. I remember almost none of them today. The worst were fired. The best excused themselves and returned to the public school system before that precious, uniquely individual spark was snuffed out of them.
When comparing the two systems, I felt that in the end it came down to caveat emptor. The worst teachers are - in my country anyway - in the public system. The best teachers - they too are in the public system. Memory of them glitters in my mind like diamonds.
One telling anecdote and then I’ll close this mercilessly long post. The day I left the school forever (my choice I will add defensively :), I happened to be walking down the hall where the head administrator’s office was. It was a hot June morning. Graduating students were in the process of learning where they had been accepted for university. If they were staying in Canada, Queens and Western were the schools of choice. But the siren song of the Ivies in the United States was incredibly strong, and a high percentage of the girls pinned their hopes on being accepted at one of your country’s prestigious schools.
In any case, the door to the administrator’s office was open, and at the split second I walked by, I saw him slap an envelope down on her desk and bellow, “$200 000 and all I get out of it is an acceptance at Queen’s for Daniella”.
WOW, the impact you had on one life, and the ripple effect that Oprah has had by encouraging education, reading (her book club recommendations make a book a national best seller) gives me goosebumps. Thank you, and all educators, for your inspiration to the lives you touch!
Teachers are so vital. Sometimes being the sole anchor of love and care in a child’s life. The gifts they give keep on giving. Thank you Andrea for giving us all those gifts. 🙏🙏 Thank you for sharing a bit of your history. 💕
Andrea, I cannot thank you enough for the impact you had on Oprah and on hundreds of other students during your career. I found teaching to be a tremendous opportunity to learn from my students as well as to be an honor to be able to lead them through another year. "Teach" and "Peace" share a majority of letters. My heart goes out to the teachers of today.
Andrea, you are an unsung heroine/hero of our time -- as are all our best educators! My profound thanks to you, to Christine and Carla, and to all educators of our vibrant youth. Years ago, I was hit with the love of educating through teaching kindergarten classes -- I have graduated to standing before college classes where interaction with my students fills me with life, joy, new knowledge -- as well as deep sorrow for the agony the have all gone through during the past 18 months. Thank you, dear colleagues and fellow educators, past and present, for all that you have done and for having given of yourselves in such magnificent ways!
Rowshan, I share both the agony and the ecstasy! I hope you have a good semester (or quarter--whatever rolls in your world). I am going to officially be an emerita faculty member in a couple weeks but I still have a passel of students to get through the knothole backwards, which is my description of the capstone/thesis/dissertation process . . . The last 18 months has been hellish for everyone, and this upcoming term will be difficult. But I have hope in my students.
Thank you, Linda. Many, many congratulations to you on your new title of emerita as you retire and best of luck with your passel of students❣️ May they all pass through (pun intended) the knothole backwards, gently and with ease, as you shepherd them with your wisdom and academic expertise.
It continues to amaze me to see my students grown and standing before me at a grocery or football game reminiscing about our time together many years before. They are unanimous in telling me how a lot of things I taught them or told them didn’t really impress them until many years after. I told them that’s what a good teacher does. Gives you room for thought then and now.
Beautifully written, Andrea, and from a fellow teacher, thank you for showing so clearly the joy, the rewards of our profession. While most of our students do not become internationally known, I know every teacher has similar stories about students we have had the privilege of knowing, guiding and watching succeed. It’s not the summers “off”, it’s certainly not the money, but it’s what you have so beautifully described here that makes us love teaching.
Thank you, Gina. As much as I enjoyed the time off in the summers (when I did not work a temporary job) the reality was that it was "compulsory unemployment without unemployment benefits." I had to chuckle when people commented that it must be nice to have the summers off. True, it was, but it was also difficult. However, the last high school teaching job I had in California, the school district prorated our pay check so that we would have a summer income. That was nice.
It has to do your heart good to see your students succeed so wildly. Looks like with the visible evidence of just one student, you've made a lasting impact on our country.
Andrea, I read your comment too fast and didn’t take in that you taught Oprah Winfrey and clearly mentored her as well.
I’m gobstruck by how much good you did. Without your encouragement, she might have followed an entirely different trail.
I’m sure you must have influenced many other students in a great way because you gave so much of yourself to teaching.
Your story is so inspiring. I apologize for not commenting sooner. Obviously much good goes on in a classroom, but the most formative teacher-student experiences are in extracurricular, especially when they advance to such a level.
Thank you Dr. Richardson. I am reminded....
The supreme court decision of 1954 ruled that separate schools were inherently unequal and unconstitutional. Thus began the civil rights movement that swept across the nation throughout the sixties and seventies. When I graduated college in 1968 and began teaching in Nashville, Tennessee at East Nashville High School, the equal rights movement provided the setting for a personal voyage that has served me well throughout my life.
Growing up in an East Tennessee small town, I had very few chances to even see a black person. When we went to the movies in my small hometown, I knew that the balcony was where black people were allowed to watch the movie, but I never gave the situation much thought. I learned that black students were bussed to a school somewhere, not close to our town; I did not know where that was.
As I began teaching in Nashville, citizens daily clashed throughout the city and in the schools about issues of bussing and integration. That year, 1968, was the first year that East Nashville High School became integrated. As the local black high school was closed, practically overnight the East High student population became 40% black and 60% white.
Our faculty was comprised of teachers already on staff at East Nashville High School, teachers that were included from the original all black high school, and at least one young white teacher fresh out of college. Our black and white classroom teachers and administrators attended a number of in-service training programs about human relations relative the needs of cultural harmony and academic equality. Those were high energy and sometimes contentious training programs.
In the midst of the turmoil and challenges, I was fortunate to work with a young black student who epitomized a student level of high ideals and aspirations, talent, intellect, and positive attitude that we needed and called upon to help lead our young people to more harmonious co-existence. She was in a couple of my English classes, my speech classes, and the National Forensic League (NFL) club which I was assigned to coach. She was popular in the student body and won a number of class officer elections. I coached her through three years of NFL local, state, and national tournaments. Two years in a row she and I traveled to the national tournaments of the NFL. She was a national finalist one year and again in the next year she was a finalist and won third place in the national tournament at Stanford University.
It is therefore, an honor and a source of personal pride that I have witnessed her shining success as an actress, world-wide leader in human rights efforts, and most famously known for her television show, The Oprah Winfrey Show
Andrea. I have heard Oprah speak so many times about teachers and giving credit and kudos to them for inspiring and leading so many young people, including herself, to embracing their potential that they had not recognized up to that point.
I’m so proud of you, fellow educator. Our work is important beyond measure.
I taught for decades in our public school system and then, after nominal retirement, for a decade in what is called the independent school system. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to take over a dying school for gifted children and help bring it back to rude good health.
The first point is a given, for any serious teacher. I can think of no more fortunate circumstance in life than to have been a teacher as a vocation. Those who have been understand instantly what I mean when I say that teaching is a privilege of the highest order. Children are a wellspring of energy for teachers. They see the world in an inspiringly fresh way. Unless one is hardened to the point of sclerosis, teachers are changed forever by lessons of the greatest importance, each “taught” by a child who is just being his or her real self. We become fuller better human beings through teaching and receive much more than we give.
Yet our influence in children is hauntingly strong and as often as not a teacher does not know the students whom (s)he has influenced the most. Ask an adult of any age which teacher influenced their life the most, and they will instantly remember. Stories will gush from them. It is humbling and a little bit frightening to know what influence one can wield - for good or otherwise.
I have mixed feelings about the private vs public school system. In Canada, there is a greater range of teaching competence in public schools than in the private system by and large. The power of unions to protect teachers of limited energy, intellectual scope, goodwill, or moral values is shockingly strong. I say that with a heavy heart because I am a union supporter through and through and held executive positions in our teacher’s union. My wife and I put all of our children through public schools, but I didn’t hesitate to go to the guidance department and ask for changes to my child’s timetable if I knew that teacher would have a malign influence on them. We desperately wanted them to retain a love for learning for their lifetimes and knew there were teachers who effortlessly snuffed it out in their students. Yet they were never fired and inspections were token for the most part.
I would learn that the private school system was massively different. In two years at what is likely Canada’s most prestigious schools for girls, I had my eyes opened. The school was swimming in money, reputation, and “best practices”. But it was, when one scratched beneath the surface, a brutally Darwinian place, for both teachers and students. Teachers were paid well and treated like shit - in an upper crust sort of way of course. They could be fired with minimal notice - in fact I knew through chance that one was about to be fired before she did.
Most students looked through you rather than at you - to them it was natural to see their teachers as being on a par with other hired help their parents engaged - useful insofar as you taught what needed to be learned.
There was corruption - both large and small scale. Parents bought their way in with “special donations”, when their child didn’t qualify in the first place. The school’s reputation rose and fell on its global results on the province’s standardized testing. Naturally teachers in the tested subject areas taught to the test - a soul crushing experience. Naturally certain parents were discreetly contacted and it was discussed whether it might be better for their *sensitive* (read ‘not too bright’) daughter to stay home on those test days. Not surprisingly, that school always succeeded brilliantly and was able to use that as a lure to attract the next group of kids.
The teachers were uniformly competent and never much more, as far as I could see. The administration molded them to fit the school’s image - bright, perky, unfailingly pleasant, hard working, good with parents. I remember almost none of them today. The worst were fired. The best excused themselves and returned to the public school system before that precious, uniquely individual spark was snuffed out of them.
When comparing the two systems, I felt that in the end it came down to caveat emptor. The worst teachers are - in my country anyway - in the public system. The best teachers - they too are in the public system. Memory of them glitters in my mind like diamonds.
One telling anecdote and then I’ll close this mercilessly long post. The day I left the school forever (my choice I will add defensively :), I happened to be walking down the hall where the head administrator’s office was. It was a hot June morning. Graduating students were in the process of learning where they had been accepted for university. If they were staying in Canada, Queens and Western were the schools of choice. But the siren song of the Ivies in the United States was incredibly strong, and a high percentage of the girls pinned their hopes on being accepted at one of your country’s prestigious schools.
In any case, the door to the administrator’s office was open, and at the split second I walked by, I saw him slap an envelope down on her desk and bellow, “$200 000 and all I get out of it is an acceptance at Queen’s for Daniella”.
It seemed a fitting memory for my last day.
Thank you, Christine.
WOW, the impact you had on one life, and the ripple effect that Oprah has had by encouraging education, reading (her book club recommendations make a book a national best seller) gives me goosebumps. Thank you, and all educators, for your inspiration to the lives you touch!
Ditto! Goosebumps! All other careers begin with an education. And this just shows the impact a teacher has!
Thank you, Denise.
Thank you, Nancy.
Teachers are so vital. Sometimes being the sole anchor of love and care in a child’s life. The gifts they give keep on giving. Thank you Andrea for giving us all those gifts. 🙏🙏 Thank you for sharing a bit of your history. 💕
Thank you, Christy.
Andrea, I cannot thank you enough for the impact you had on Oprah and on hundreds of other students during your career. I found teaching to be a tremendous opportunity to learn from my students as well as to be an honor to be able to lead them through another year. "Teach" and "Peace" share a majority of letters. My heart goes out to the teachers of today.
Carla, thank you.
Andrea, you are an unsung heroine/hero of our time -- as are all our best educators! My profound thanks to you, to Christine and Carla, and to all educators of our vibrant youth. Years ago, I was hit with the love of educating through teaching kindergarten classes -- I have graduated to standing before college classes where interaction with my students fills me with life, joy, new knowledge -- as well as deep sorrow for the agony the have all gone through during the past 18 months. Thank you, dear colleagues and fellow educators, past and present, for all that you have done and for having given of yourselves in such magnificent ways!
Rowshan, I share both the agony and the ecstasy! I hope you have a good semester (or quarter--whatever rolls in your world). I am going to officially be an emerita faculty member in a couple weeks but I still have a passel of students to get through the knothole backwards, which is my description of the capstone/thesis/dissertation process . . . The last 18 months has been hellish for everyone, and this upcoming term will be difficult. But I have hope in my students.
Thank you, Linda. Many, many congratulations to you on your new title of emerita as you retire and best of luck with your passel of students❣️ May they all pass through (pun intended) the knothole backwards, gently and with ease, as you shepherd them with your wisdom and academic expertise.
It continues to amaze me to see my students grown and standing before me at a grocery or football game reminiscing about our time together many years before. They are unanimous in telling me how a lot of things I taught them or told them didn’t really impress them until many years after. I told them that’s what a good teacher does. Gives you room for thought then and now.
Salud, Rowshan!
Salud, Christine!
Those chance meetings and reminiscences are such blessings: the most gratifying and requiting gifts in an educator's life, aren't they?
On many levels, my students have become my raîsons d'être. They give me the energy to keep on going at almost 74. 😉
Thank you, Rowshan. Best wishes for a comfortable and peaceful year.
And to you, Andrea!
Beautifully written, Andrea, and from a fellow teacher, thank you for showing so clearly the joy, the rewards of our profession. While most of our students do not become internationally known, I know every teacher has similar stories about students we have had the privilege of knowing, guiding and watching succeed. It’s not the summers “off”, it’s certainly not the money, but it’s what you have so beautifully described here that makes us love teaching.
Thank you, Gina. As much as I enjoyed the time off in the summers (when I did not work a temporary job) the reality was that it was "compulsory unemployment without unemployment benefits." I had to chuckle when people commented that it must be nice to have the summers off. True, it was, but it was also difficult. However, the last high school teaching job I had in California, the school district prorated our pay check so that we would have a summer income. That was nice.
It has to do your heart good to see your students succeed so wildly. Looks like with the visible evidence of just one student, you've made a lasting impact on our country.
And the world with the school for girls she has made!
Thank you, Ally.
This is a fantastic post, Andrea!! Thanks for sharing!!
Thank you, Linda.
That’s so amazing Andrea! Thank you for sharing your story! For me as a teacher it’s the inspiration I need after that tough first week.
I feel for teachers beginning a new school year under such circumstances as the pandemic and political scene.
It’s going to be a bumpy ride! Our principal has already had to quarantine. But I’m hopeful it’s going to be a good year!
Good luck Denise, such tough circumstances. Sending good thoughts.
Kudos to you, Andrea, for your important career and for sharing this beautifully written piece.
Thank you, Mim.
Andrea, I read your comment too fast and didn’t take in that you taught Oprah Winfrey and clearly mentored her as well.
I’m gobstruck by how much good you did. Without your encouragement, she might have followed an entirely different trail.
I’m sure you must have influenced many other students in a great way because you gave so much of yourself to teaching.
Your story is so inspiring. I apologize for not commenting sooner. Obviously much good goes on in a classroom, but the most formative teacher-student experiences are in extracurricular, especially when they advance to such a level.
You must feel so good about your career.
Thank you, Eric. I do so appreciate your kind and wise words.
Wow. Thanks for this inspirational story and your work. The nation needs more teachers like you.
Beautiful, Andrea! Thank you for this wondrous story and for your wondrous heart!
Sophia, thank you.