From the "Why I Teach" Files

OK, I asked and my student answered.

Question: What new skills or insights have you learned so far this semester?

Answer: "To be more relaxed when I write; to write a thesis, and
that not all English teachers are A-holes."

Yes, she actually turned it in.

Add this to another "Why I Teach" favorite: "Professor, you're giving us information overload!"

P.S. And speaking of information overload, while I'm at it: "Why don't we know these things?" "Why doesn't anybody tell us?" These are questions from an outraged student, an Eastern European immigrant, after I showed a documentary, "Out of Obsurity," about a little-known 1939 library "sit-in" when five young black men in Alexandria, Virginia protested their inability to get library cards and use the new "white" library that ALL Alexandria taxpapers funded, simply because of the color of their skin.
Remember, this outraged student is of the generation that was taught how to pass standardized tests; not any standard or useful content.

Spring Forward w/ "Special Seminary" Love

Wow! Can't believe it's been almost a year since I posted a comment. Got to spring forward! If this year has taught me anything, it's the value of friends, family and community. You just can't spend enough time with the folks you love. I'm not saying that just because I lost a dear friend, Lydia Lively, this year, but I've spent a great deal of time on a labor of love -- the fight to restore and preserver our precious Ft. Ward/Seminary African-American community in Alexandria, VA , encompasing the famous "Remember the Titans" T.C. Williams H.S. Here we can boast of 150 years of continuous struggle and survival despite all odds, including city leaders attempts to displace our founding families numerous times. The strong sense of community love, value and honor was experienced last Saturday at the "homegoing services" of one of "Seminary's" matriarch, Julia Adams Bradby. She was not only the mother of seven children but also the dean mother to Cub Scout Troop #138. Those who remain came out to pay their respect and were poignantly represented by Tommy Crewe's solo serenade, "How Great Thou Art." "Seminary is a special place," said Stanley Bradby Jr., in his tribute to his mom. Minister Alphonso "Butch" Terrell reminded us of how Mr. and Mrs. Bradby were "Seminary's Sweethearts" as they never missed their evening stroll walking hand-in-hand. You have to have grown up here to understand how well we "colored chil'ren" were nurtured and guided and protect in this self-suffiicient enclave, and how it shaped our lives well into adulthood. That "special" feeling that has forged our paths was palpable Saturday as we gathered and shared old stories and the repast staples of roast chicken, potatoes, green beans and rolls, ice tea and, of course, pound cake. It was raining hard and the tornado warning was live, but I couldn't have felt warmer or safer. Spring filled my steps and the air; maybe it was Mrs. Bradby's Easter pink suit and bonnet, worn as she lay in repose, that's the blooming cause. Sadly, few communities like Seminary exist today. The sense of family spirit and caring is what is desparately missing from the polarized America experience as most would rather pick a fight than pick a partner to stroll hand-in-hand for a common community good.