Learning Traditional Love..

In Voices of Our Foremothers: Celebrating the Legacy of African-American Woman Educators A Personal Dedication, author Sunny-Marie Birney discusses how the nuturing characterisitics of her African American teachers has shaped her into the African American woman she is today. Birney was adopted at the tender age of two. At such a youthful age she did not have any remeberance of her African American mother as she was adopted by two parents of Euro-American descent. Unable to further relate to her Euro-American parents, Birney found herself lost for eighteen years of her life. She states that three of her college professors, three African American women teachers, Drs. Susan Fraizer-Kouassi, Yvonne Williams and Mary Young strongly impacted her life. She discusses how these teachers were not only exemplary teachers but, they were nurturers and truly cared about her well being.  Birney states that because her teachers were the same complexion and race as she was, they understood the struggle to get where they were in life. She states that also foremothers such as, Emma Wilson, Lucy Laney, and Mary McLeod Bethune were all interconnected by providing literacy to one another. Birney talks about Paulo Friere's Pedagogy of the Opressed which states that, " Problem posing education involves a constant unveiling of reality. [It] affirms men and women as beings inthe process of becoming - unfinished, uncomplete beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality. Problem-posing eduaction is revoluntionary futurity. Hence, it is prophetic (and as such,hopeful). hence it corressponds to the historical nature of humankind. Hence, it affirms women and men as beings who transcend themselves, who move forward and look ahead..a historical movement..a deepened consciousness oftheir situation leads people to apprehend that situation..." (Birney 50). I believe that statment is true. Earlier this year, I had the chance to read Friere and that waas the first time that I thought and knew of pedagogy and of pedagogy from that point of view. Looking back on my life, I can relate to Birney's feeling of womanist and African American uplifting from African American female teachers. In my first semester here at Spelman I saw this in my former African Diaspora in the World teacher Professor Beth Sarah Wright. She taught us with a open mind and she challenged us. Being an African American herself, it appeaared she related to our obstacles as young woman at a all-women's historically black college. Alike, in this class I see thaat by our readings and Professor Greene's discussions in class she is trying to "pass the torch" to us her students. Our teachers are trying to get us enriched in our literacies and in the deepest aspect of our womanhood, self-idenity and empowerment. For they like Birney and Woodson know, " The servant of the people is down among them, living as they live, doing what they do and enjoying what they enjoy. He may be a little better informed than some other members of the group; it may be that he has had some experience that they have not had, but in spite of this advantage he should have more humility than those whom he serves, for we are told, 'Whosoever is greatest among you,let him be your servant." (p. 131) Our teachers believe we can be one of those servants.

-Jacquelyn D. Patterson