Voices of Our Foremothers

In the reading "Voices of Our Foremothers," Sunny-Marie Birney, uses the technique of breaking the chapter up into parts.  There were four parts within the chapter. Part 1 was labeled, "Laying the Foreground." In this setion Birney talks about her her feeling as though she was a motherless child because she was adopted at the age of two by two people of Euro-American descent and also because she had no recollection of her African American mother. This situation left Birney with a feeling that she was missing a piece of herself. The section goes on to tell how three of her female, African American college profesors made a lasting impression on her life by filling that void she felt had been missing. Part 2 is titled, "The Art of Service," and it explains how educators should approach teaching as a service and view their profession as a sacred calling. Part 3 is called "Carry the Torch." This section names African American female educators that Birney felt paved the way for her and helped to inspire her to enter the field of education. Part 4 is entitled, "Instilling the Vision and Passing the Torch," and it concludes the chapter by Birney talking about her preoent business and her purpose for opening her educational consulting business. She also talks about her decision for home schooling her daughter and the difference between her daughter's home schooled edution as opposed to the education she would obtain while at a public school.

In the Part 1, Birney states," My professors modeled not just exemplary teaching, but also a commitment that uplifted and helped transform myself and, in turn, the African-American community. The fact that they were Black women teaching literature, psychology, and contemporary issues from a Black woman's prespective touched me." When first coming to Spelman College, I had the same reaction because throughout elementary, middle, and high school this was not a normal thing. Throughout my entire educational career I have been accustomed to having White teachers who only gave me the facts from a white prospective. So, when coming to Spelman, like Birney, I admired the fact that the majority of my professors were Black and allowing me to view the same history that I learned in elementary, middle, and high school, but now teaching it to me from a black perspective. 

 Later on in the chapter, Birney explains that educators should view teaching as servants and approach their profession as a sacred calling. I agree with this viewpoint. She explains that an educator should teach in a way "that the students can verbally express themselves and become intrinsically empowered, resulting in a cocreative, reciprocal partnership between student and teacher." I took this as meaning that a teacher should teach so that the information will be useful to the students and also that through their teaching methods, the teachers are able to create an atmosphere that the students fell comfotable to communicate with them in.

Your Perspective

Lillie Smith reflects on her childhood in the cotton field in her acknowledgement of experiences that have shaped her life. Smith nostalgically reflects on the beauty she found in the hard work she had to do as a child. She looks back and realizes what it has taken to shape the way she views the world around her. I find it interesting how she comments on how black women look at education differently, often question the creditials of another black teacher. She also talks about how the black woman is marginailzed compared to the white woman, and how it effects self identity, whereas she found hers without the struggle of outside influence in the south. I found it to be true, we often as black women question the ability of another black person to educate them.

The author discusses the way she researched what influenced people's "knowing" and she mentions how she first hated working in the field, but now that she is older she attributes it to her working qualities now, effecting her perspectives of knowledge. In the cotton field is where she found the beginnings of herself and the initiation of the type of person that she would become. Her humble beginnings have given a deeper apprecition of  her past experiences and perspectives.

Lessons from Down Under

Lessons from Down Under by Bessie House-Soremekun gives readers a taste of childhood in the South right in the middle of the civil rights turmoil. She tells of the restraints put on slaves and how they obtained their own education by depending on literacy and their own traditions. The nonexistence of formal education in the black community led to history being passed down through oral methods rather than writings. The reading discussed different ways African Americans expressed themselves, through storytelling, songs, and even a more rebellious method: protesting and boycotting.