Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

to comment that I was a typical
creole type . One of the teachers
.from New Orleans asked me where
I had lived, and I told him, "The
Seventh Ward," which is a very
mixed-up place . I invited a creole
friend to visit me, and introduced
her as my cousin.
The teachers were convinced,
but not the students . They weren't
fooled . They knew I was a foreigner
. A G.I . bride . There were debates
about me in the dormitories :
"She's Irish-No, she's German
-No, she's Italian."
I showed them my passport to
prove that I was born in New Orleans
. They still didn't believe me .
"Why do you think I'm a
foreigner? I don't have an accent ."
"No, but you don't act like an
American ."
Teaching was hard work . I had
a heavy load . I had never taught
before, and was teaching subjects
I hadn't studied in years on one
day's notice . My first 10 minutes in
a classroom were memorable . I
looked down at the faces, puzzled
to the point of panic, their pencils
poised above their notebooks not
knowing what to write . Finally, I
read the same expression on every
face :
"What in the hell is this woman
talking about?"
I stopped .
"You don't understand what I'm
saying, do you?"
They all shook their heads no .
"OK. Let's start over ."
We spent a lot of time on words .
NEGRO DIGEST March 1969
Words were concepts . And once
they had a word, they understood a
lot of things. Once I used the word
"paternalism" and no one knew
what that meant . I explained, "Paternalism
is when somebody makes
you do what they want you to do
by acting nice-and you better do
it yr else!"
The students had been taught to
obey . To learn by rote. They
couldn't understand why I objected
to their quoting the textbook word
for word on their exams .
"I didn't copy it . I memorized
it ."
They were used to the teacher
giving them all the questions, and
all the pat answers to the questions .
Once we discussed a question in
class, and I closed the discussion
without giving them an answer .
They were disturbed .
"But what's the answer? What's
the answer?"
"There isn't any answer," I replied
. They laughed . They had never
heard of such a thing.
Most of the students were from
the immediate area. They were
from very poor families with lots of
kids . They were patient and longsuffering.
The campus was like a
prison. It was several miles out of
town, and there was no public
transportation . Girls were expelled
for riding in boys' cars . The girls
had to be in their rooms by 7 p.m .
They couldn't even sit on the
porch; even in the summer. The
girls' dorm had iron bars on the
windows. The president's dogs
bl