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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview K-0132, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Rebecca Clayton grew up in Madison County, Virginia, during the 1940s and 1950s in a family that greatly valued education. After offering her brief reflections on her family background and her childhood experiences, Clayton shifts her attention to a discussion of her career as a teacher. Clayton earned her degree in education from Longwood College (1958-1960) in Prince Edward County, Virginia. During her years there, Clayton witnessed upheaval within the community as the public schools closed in opposition to mounting pressure to desegregate. For Clayton, a young teacher in training, the tensions she witnessed during those years were especially formative for her developing belief that racial tolerance, particularly when it came to education, was imperative. During the 1960s, Clayton relocated to Durham, North Carolina, and worked briefly in the library at Duke University. In 1970, she returned to teaching, initially working as a substitute teacher in the Durham school district. Clayton's return to teaching coincided with the integration of Durham schools. That same year, a long-term substitute job became a five-year position at North Durham Elementary School. According to Clayton, the newly desegregated school was characterized by chaos and tension between students when she first arrived, although she emphasizes the efforts of teachers and school officials to promote understanding and to foster a sense of pride in the students. Clayton suggests that tensions were diminishing when she left North Durham to teach at Fayetteville Street Elementary School in 1975. She also notes, though, that white flight to the suburbs was beginning to drastically impact the racial composition of Durham public schools. As a result, Clayton had taught significantly more African American students than white students by the time of the interview in 1998. Clayton devotes the final thirty minutes of the interview to a discussion of her work at Eastway Elementary school during the mid-1990s. During those years, the Latino population had begun to grow at a rapid rate. Clayton discusses how that affected student interactions and school curriculum. In particular, Clayton focuses on the challenges of teaching students whose first language was not English and describes various ways in which the school sought to build bridges to the broader community. Although she laments the fact that the growing emphasis on test scores inhibited teachers' efforts to focus on cultural learning, she argues that the students were not dissuaded by cultural barriers when it came to forming friendships or helping one another learn. She concludes the interview by arguing that her thirty years of experience in Durham were mostly positive.
Rebecca Clayton became a teacher in the wake of the Brown v.
Board decision during the early 1960s, and in 1970 she went to work in the
newly integrated Durham, North Carolina, school district. In this interview,
Clayton describes her experiences as a teacher during the height of school
desegregation. The interview concludes with her observations on the impact of
the growing Latino population on Durham schools.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
My name is Angela Hornsby and I am interviewing Miss Becky Clayton a teacher at Eastway Elementary School. It's part of the Southern History Program's New Immigrants Project. Okay, Ms. Clayton if first you could tell me when you were born.
I was born in December, 1939 and I was born in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Could you tell me a little bit about your family history? What your parents did. A little bit about your grandparents.
All right. On my mother's side, my grandmother and my grandfather were
both schoolteachers. Actually my grandfather was in North Carolina and
my grandmother had come down to North Carolina to teach. They taught at
Swan Quarter, right along the coast of North Carolina. I visited there
and seen the little schoolhouse where they taught and all of that. Then
they moved back to Virginia and settled in Madison County, Virginia
which is about thirty miles from Charlottesville. My parents, my mother
graduated from high school. My father did not. My father was an
electrician and a plumber's helper. He had a lot of common sense. He
brought the newspaper home every night. We listened to the news after
dinner every night. My mother's two brothers were college educated but
nobody else in the family was college educated. It was not until my
mother and her siblings started having children that those of us were
college educated, for the most part there. But education was always
important to us. And it was always important to us to know. It was not,
if we were riding along in the car—I learned as much riding along in the
car from my mother telling us about things or things that we saw as I
did probably from reading books. She always read the Sunday comics to us
and I thought I hated it when we got old enough to read and she stopped
reading to us on the Sunday comics. But we did that. We always got
little books to read. At Christmas time, and remember as old as I am you
only got gifts at Christmas time or birthdays, we got educational games.
And it was a real challenge to win or to know the answers to all the
questions in the book. And then I lived in Madison County, Virginia.
Which one end of it is in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The other is in the
foothills and right across the Rapid Dan River from where I lived was
where James Madison lived. Montpelier, his home, was like five miles
from my home. We would pass there on the way
What impact did being so near these sort of sites of history—what type of impact did that have on you?
I think it—of course too, the Civil War fought through there; the Revolutionary War fought through there; and all the stories of the people from that area who were involved in those things—I just think it made, made me proud of my country. Made me aware of how the country had developed from there. It was not like that things just happened over night. And that certainly made me want to know more about this place and to go places. Cause back, being born in '39, it was like World War II time where you didn't go a lot of places, where the gas was rationed. The rubber for the tires were rationed. I don't even think we really made any long trips until I was—gosh, I don't know—probably past ten before we would take trips to maybe to Lynchburg other than Charlottesville to the doctor those kind of things and to shop. But actually to go somewhere to visit somebody, like to go to Lynchburg or Richmond, things to visit relatives, we just didn't do that because we were poor. And I think a whole lot of other people were too at that time. So we had to do a lot of our going places by reading. But I knew they were there. And I knew I wanted to go to some of those places. I try to stress that with my kids now too. Even though you are where you are here in Northeast Central Durham, you can go anywhere you want to if you get your education and go.
Was religion much of a factor growing up?
My mother made sure that we attended Sunday School and went to church for
preaching. We had, I went to the Christian Church, the Disciples of
Christ Church and we had Christian youth fellowship. We went to that.
But I lived in a rural area. I lived in a rural area of three country
stores and three churches: the Methodist Church, the Christian Church
and the Lutheran Church. Part of my family background was with the
Lutheran Church cause I think my grandparents and their family may have
been at one time have been at the Lutheran Church. Now we were at the
Christian but my mother and my cousins—my cousins went to the Methodist
Church so my mother went to the Methodist Women's meetings
Did you have any siblings?
Yes, I have two sisters. I have one sister that was about fourteen months younger than I. Then I have another sister that is about five years younger than I. I was the oldest one of the family, right there.
And did they also go into teaching?
Oh Lord no. They were really smart. I am the only one that works for the
state government. They both went to work for the Federal government. So
they have beach houses at Cape Cod. They have big houses. But they are
very generous with me. They let me as a state employee come and share in
all those things. No, they, as a matter of fact, one of them went to
college and works for the Census Bureau as a statistician and makes
really good money. Another sister went right out of college went to work
at the Library of Congress typing up their news bulletin or whatever and
stayed with the Federal government all the way through. When she got
married, she moved to Boston. She works for the Housing and Urban
Development. She retired last year and was given keys to the city and
all these doodads that's in her curio cabinet that the people gave her
for all of her work. Now I don't get that and I'm not going to get that.
But I get little notes from kids that say, "You teach me everything I
know" or "You teach me everything you know" and "You were working really
hard and I didn't want to bother you". So those are the kind of rewards
that I get back. It's just like a joke sometime because I say that I
have really enjoyed my job more over the years than they have. Cause I
can hear them complain at times. I've heard them say, "We don't have
enough work to do in my office" at times. Things like that. I know I am
making a difference daily almost with children. And the little notes and
the little things you get back, the little things they bring you back
from trips or whatever, I've got those. Or Christmas ornaments. I have a
lot of Christmas ornaments
In Madison, what schools did you attend?
Madison County is a rural county and it had—let's see the town that I was in elementary school—it probably had five, four, probably I'd say about five elementary schools. I initially started to elementary school in the same school that my father and mother had gone too. It was a, actually a, four room building. But when I went there we only used one room and they had four classes in that same room. So when I read about some of the prairie schools and things like that, I know exactly what it looked like. It had the potbelly stove in the middle of the room. It had one row for first grade; one row for second grade; one row for third grade; and one row for fourth grade. It also had a room where you had to hang up your coat. You had to pack your lunch. You had to bring your metal cup to hang on the rack so you could go outside and pump water from the pump. You had to go to the outside bathroom. You had to ride the bus to school. All right that's where I started out. They closed that school when I was in the fourth grade and we moved. The students moved to Madison to I think they called them union schools down here. But anyway, it had first grade through twelfth grade. There was all there in one same building. And by that point, I was in fifth grade. And then too we only had one classroom. One classroom of fifth graders; one classroom of sixth. And they still had maybe two more elementary schools that were functioning in the county at that point. Now, they have I think it's two elementary schools in that county, maybe three, a middle school, one middle school and one high school. The—I guess when Joyce graduated which was five years after me, '59—about '65, they opened a brand new high school there.
Joyce being?
Joyce is my sister. That probably in '65 they built a new school for the
high school there. And they built a separate school for the middle
school. And then the old high school, which was built coming out of the
depression years, because a lot of people did not have jobs. So I know
that that was built with, out of Depression people because my
grandfather helped build that. My father also worked on the CCC help
building Skyline Drive cause I mean you just got a job wherever you
could. So they worked there. Madison is not large. But it is growing. A
lot of people have come out, even when I was in school,
To what extent was Madison ethnically diverse? Was it not?
In '58 and '59, there was no integration in the schools. It was not a large population of black families there. In Rochelle, which was the little community where I lived, there are the three churches and three general stores. There were two families that lived in like the town area. There were some other families that lived on the road down below us. And there was a black church down below us. It was not largely populated. I'm sure there must be more that have moved into that area now. And again it would have been Caucasian and black. There was no other ethnic groups there. Sometime after—no, sometime even before I graduated even before '58, though, we had a large influx of a religious group, the Mennonites moved in there. And they apparently had, before I left they had, of course they had their school. They had built a nursing home. And now they have built a store. A lot of people when they go back home, they go back there to shop because they have a lot of good items: the cheeses, and jellies and home breads and pies and all kind of things that you might find in specialty stores here in Durham. We can get them at the Yoder's market there in the Madison area. I'm sure it's been a real blessing having the nursing home that they have there. Not having lived there for a long time, just visiting back every once in a while, it seems like people get along fairly well. I don't hear a lot of distress. What seems to be the big distress in that area now is that people want to go in there and build houses on all the land. So a lot of people are fighting that so you don't have a lot of housing developments taking up a lot of the farm land or a lot of the green land, taking the trees away. Which I hope they can be successful in fighting a lot of that. That remains to be seen.
What did you do after school?
When I left school each day? What did I do after school is that what you mean? Or do you mean after I graduated?
Yes, after you graduated from high school.
After I graduated from high school I went to Longwood College. And Longwood is in Farmville, Virginia. And Farmville is located, or is the town seat for Prince Edward County, Virginia and that was part of the Brown versus the Board of Education suit. Of course when I was graduating in '58, that decision had already been made. The black students in Prince Edward County went on strike because their school was so bad. The conditions in their school were so bad. I think the facility itself was just, from what I had read, was just in real poor condition. So they went on strike. As I said, the Brown versus the Board of Education said that you had to have, that they could attend the white schools. But in Prince Edward County, and this happened probably when I was maybe in my sophomore or junior year, they closed the public schools entirely. It's the only place I've known where the public schools were entirely closed. And the students went to school in church basements, in factories, wherever they could find extra room. People from all across the nation sent books and supplies and things like that in there for them to use. When you went to Sunday School on Sunday morning and you had books lined up all along the side of the room. Or if you wanted to have your church dinners like you'd been having in the past, you couldn't because you had so much extra stuff piled in the room that was being used by the schools. By the time I left, I believe Prince Edward Academy opened which was a private academy. Now they tried to get some of the people in that area to pay taxes to go to the private academy even though they were not providing a public school. Now people who really knew what was going on balked at that and would not do that.
When did all this happen?
This happened—I went to college, September of 1958. I graduated in June
of 1962. So the schools, I believe the public schools were still closed
when I left in June of 1962. And I'm not sure when the public school
reopened because I did my student teaching in Roanoke, Virginia, which
was one of the places students from Longwood went anyway to student
teach. A number of people stayed. If you were an officer on campus, or
if you were involved in some activities on campus, you stayed on campus
to student teach. And you student taught in Prince Edward County so that
you could take care of the all the activities that you were involved in.
But because the schools were closed in Prince Edward County, those
students had to drive to outlying counties every day to student teach.
They also had to open up new facilities for the student teaching because
in the past you went to Richmond and Roanoke. When they closed the
public
What impression did all of that that was happening in Prince Edward, what impact did that have on you as a budding teacher to be?
Well I hope it made me more tolerant. I hope it made me more aware of how people felt and how you would interact. And try and be more aware of people's feelings, I would think. I don't really know. Well I think it certainly gave me a rich background to talk about my experiences there. And discuss whether this was right or wrong in lots of cases with that.
And what did you conclude in terms of—?
Well, I mean some of this stuff is just a waste when you spend as much time and energy in something like that. When you could've been moving ahead all the time. Because as I said, I don't know when the public school reopened, but in all cases wherever these academies have been built for the most part they've all disappeared and they've all gone back to public schools. People are going and working together. The nation is diversified. Your workforce, wherever you go, is diversified. And people really need to learn how to get along with each other and be aware of the differences. That's an education in itself right there. For you to know how people from different countries react, what their feelings, customs are and look at how many of these things you people join together and use together anyway. It's just takes up a lot of time and energy that's not necessary with that. Longwood is now, when I went there it was just for females—now it's co-ed and it's diversified. They've got people from everywhere now. It could've easily been done earlier. I think most people just—I can't imagine to many of them being—it surprised me when I run across people who seem to be have real strong feelings about other people and negative feelings about other people. Because I think, "Well how in the world can that be?" You're wasting a lot of energy on that.
Your major in college, was it secondary education?
Well, my degree was in secondary education. My major was in history. I
called my minor social studies because I really wanted to emphasize
history, all my courses being history. So I took economics, and
government and whatever else we had, choices I had then for my social
studies. I did my student teaching in Roanoke in government. When I
started teaching in Manassas, I started with eighth
When and what circumstances did you come to Durham?
I married a guy from Roxboro. I got married in October of 1968. I moved to North Carolina and didn't particularly want to put all the time and energy into the work that would go into teaching. Getting married in October, which the school year would have already started, so I looked for a job somewhere else. I worked in the Biology/Forestry library at Duke. That was just not appealing to me at all.
How long did you work there?
About two years, a little less than two years. And then I just said, "No more."
What was so unappealing about your job?
Those things are just routines. You're dealing with books more so than
you're dealing with people. It was just not what I wanted to do. I think
I really must be a people person. I said I was definitely—I had also
gone back to UNC and got my North Carolina teaching certificate. So I
was prepared, not truly prepared for elementary, but I was prepared to
get my certificate so I could continue teaching in high school. There
were no positions available in Durham City or County for social studies
at that point. I put my name, this was 1970, so I put my name on the
substitute list. I substituted quite frequently. That was the first year
of total integration in Durham. I think that people—I think all the
classes had a little trouble getting started and going that year. In
November, one of the older teachers who was also having, I think she had
health problems and one of her relatives had health problems. And she
just couldn't take it any more so she just quit on Friday afternoon.
They called me and asked me if I would come into sub because the
Director of Personnel knew I wanted the full-time job. So the principal,
the young principal, who was a young man, at one of the schools called
me and asked me if I would come in and take over the class until they
could find a certified elementary teacher because he knew my degree and
my certification was in high school. So I said, "I would." He used words
like they are challenging. And I knew what that meant. But I still said,
"I'll go in." And I did and I have been with elementary schools in
Durham ever since. But I did have to go back. I think I taught for about
four years before I found out that I
In elementary?
In elementary. Yeah. I've been at the fourth or fifth grade level except for summer school. And then I've worked there with sixth and eighth grade levels in summer school.
Could you talk just a little bit more about your experience substituting in—I forgot what the name of the school was?
All right. Well I started—
Well I actually got called frequently to sub from September through October and sometimes the conditions were pretty difficult. I had made up my mind I wasn't going to take anymore calls if I felt like it was going to be a difficult class. But it was one Friday afternoon, Mr. McDaniel who was principal of North Durham School called me. And I think, lucky for me, I had taken a course that summer at UNC on how to teach social studies to elementary students. The teacher had talked about the fact that you were not going to be able to use the work ethic for some of these kids even at fifth grade level, fourth or fifth grade level, cause that was not the environment they came from.
What was the racial make-up of the class?
It was probably about half-and-half at that point. Because the kids were
being drawn from what would now be, used to be Eastend school, Club
Boulevard School and North Durham School. So we had a pretty—I don't
even remember now what the percentage was but I do know it was probably
like half-and-half. But it was really hard for the kids that had
formerly been at Eastend, which would be the black students, being there
and didn't particularly want to be. The white students who had come from
probably come from Club Boulevard and had these other people in there
and didn't know, didn't want them there. Or they didn't really—I really
don't think they had spent a lot of time with the students in how to get
along with each other, or what their differences were going to be, or
how much they would be alike. But they did, they had spent a lot of time
with the teachers working with them. So when I went in there in
November, we even had workshops after that during the year. It was
really good. And I think that's something that's
What was the—How would you characterize the interactions between black and white students initially and over time?
I think they all came together eventually. But I think probably, in the beginning, from what I can gather because one of the schools, the nurse or guidance counselor or somebody, was already working with a group of the students when I got there. I think there was probably a lot of distrust. You're invading my school or you're invading my space. But probably just distrust along the line. But they all fell into line. And I do know for a fact out of that class some of them have become very successful because I actually got some of their children later on. At Holloway, I had some of the children from the kids that were in that 1971 class. I also had somebody who was in that class, or the second year class I had, and he came into help me as a volunteer over at Holloway. He was employed, probably still is employed at Duke Power and came over to volunteer at Holloway. You make an impression and you make a difference. You just don't always know it. It all comes back to you in a rather slow way. But it's been good. It's been good. I've enjoyed what I've done.
So you feel like one of the important elements as far as the students coming in line was trying to foster the sense of self-pride in the kids?
Definitely, definitely. Because I really felt like, I just had a hopeless feeling when I walked into that room. Just saw that they had practically torn up everything in there. They knew, and they really had total control of the room. Because I don't know, maybe it was the first week I was there, maybe it was after that, I remember one of the students, the teachers came down wanted chalk or staples or something. The students knew exactly where to look for it but I had no idea. They had really taken over in there.
How would you assess race relations now in Durham?
I don't think anybody's talking to each other. And I think that's the big difference, that's the big difference. I think also too that instead of just leaving it all to the schools, I think maybe the churches need to be doing more. There needs to be more visiting back and forth with each other. I know some churches do that but I don't think nearly enough of them do.
Do you mean home visits?
No, I mean church visits, church visits or whatever. Well I'm sure, now like if you teach, if you teach, or if you work, I'd think most of your co-workers you'd invite to your house. Now surely nobody thinks about now is this person black, or is this person Chinese or is this person whatever. I think people are accepting on that level. Certainly as your friend not necessarily looking at them as to what race they are. I hope not anyway. I just, that just needs to be more open talking than what has been. Durham, I've always said Durham has money; Durham has talent; Durham has education; Durham has materials; they have all those things. They're just not being directed the right way. Now don't ask me how all of that needs to be directed or to be handled. I just think they have far more resources than some places have that are doing a better job and getting all these things carried out. It seems like.
When you came to Durham, sort of just backtracking a little, where did you settle in the city?
When we came to Durham, I lived on Gary Street, which runs between Main Street and Miami Boulevard. I was very close to Y.E. Smith School. As I said, I got married and we purchased a little, a small brick house on that street.
What was the ethnic make-up of your, of the neighborhood?
Uh.
Do you still live—?
No, I don't still live there now. All white in that area. And it was like families. Most of the people there had children or a couple of them I think their children were grown. But it was like families there. Young families or families that had kids that were like middle to high school in that area.
And from there where did you move too?
Then I was divorced, or I separated, and I moved to Ruffin Street. And my
daughter and I got an apartment there and that is off of Duke Street. It
is closer to Northgate Mall. That area there was all white when we
moved. That was in 1977 although maybe even then, I'm not sure—Green
Street, which Ruffin Street ran from Green Street to Crossclub Boulevard
and ended up somewhere over there. But along Green Street there were
some black families in that area in duplexes or whatever in that area.
So I stayed there until—let me see, I don't know exactly when I—another
single parent and I purchased a duplex together, which I don't know how
you survive after divorce unless you just do something like that. And so
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Okay, I wanted to see if I could get a little bit more information about your teaching experience here in Durham.
All right, I taught five years at North Durham. The population there was both black and white. It was also during this time that the system was going through the Federal guidelines of balancing the races in the schools. In 1975, they closed to North Durham School and I transferred to Fayetteville Street School. Fayetteville Street School at that time, in compliance with these Federal guidelines, was paired with another school. So the kids from the Fayetteville Street area were bussed over to Club Boulevard, which is off of Roxboro Road and Club Boulevard and near Northgate Shopping Center. Fayetteville Street is down below North Carolina Central University. So and then the white children from the Club Boulevard area were bussed over to Fayetteville Street. Now you would have a balance in there. And you would have white students in there in '75 and '76 but that really didn't work well. Parents were not happy with that. And you had people moving out of Durham, out of Durham County. And consequently when I left Fayetteville Street in 1980, I had probably taught two years with virtually all black classes. And when I moved in 1980 to Holloway Street, we had black-white population. But by the time we moved over here in 1995, there'd been many times when I had had virtually all black classes. I may have had one or two white students or I may have had a Hispanic student but for the most part it was a large black population in that area.
So back then—
By back then you mean, '70, '75, 1980?
Yeah, your experience had been primarily with black students?
Oh, we integrated in Virginia in 19—let's see, I left there in 1967—so we
had integrated the schools in Virginia prior—and Prince William County
which is Manassas we had integrated there before I left. So I had had
experience with black students but again that was juniors, juniors in
high school. I believe the year that we integrated, I had all juniors in
high school. You had a serious population of students who really wanted
to learn. You also had that same serious population of students in 1970,
1975. And because the black parents—I guess if you hear all these
stereotypical things and you believe a lot of that stuff until you're in
it and you see it's not true—because you had black parents that had the
same goals
But as part of your Durham experience in the schools would you say that by and large you've taught more black students than white—
Oh I'm pretty sure it's more—yeah I think the population has been more black students than white.
Okay—
Without a doubt.
Sort of looking back at that prior experience, how would you say that the school community has changed in terms of the student population? Who makes up the student population?
How has it changed? Well, there's more black population. Now we're getting Hispanics into the schools. I have two Hispanic students this year. Last year, now I had the same kid three years in a row. Because I was a fourth grade teacher and then I retained him and had him in fourth grade another year and then I had fifth grade and he was a fifth grade student. I've had three or four Hispanic students. I don't feel like I've been overloaded in any way as far as that goes with students like that.
So three or four over the course of three years?
Um hmm.
How would you define—what makes, and I think you've touched upon this, what makes a strong school community in your opinion?
I think a strong school community is one that really supports the school and one that is really interested in education. I think in this particular area, in Northeast Central Durham, our parents are so overloaded with other problems that it's really hard for them to focus on their children.
What types of problems specifically?
Well, jobs, drugs, probably a lack of education on their part. Being able
to get to jobs and things that they want or need. Not knowing how to get
the services that they need. I'm glad that there are, well with the
Hispanics I know that they've got, I don't know what they are called
coordinators or
How—before sort of looking more at the routine or influence on these schools specifically.
What are your general feelings just about the increase in the Latino population here as a whole?
I don't really have any problem with that. The children that I've had seem to want to learn. Parents are supportive. They've been in. Except for this one case I had but the mother deserted that family. And then the father was working out of town so that made it really difficult for that child. I don't know how I would've felt if I had been in a foreign country; couldn't speak the language; and something like that had happened to me. So I'm sure all the problems we had with him were a lot of it was precipitated by that. Now with my others, if I called the parents in they'd come. They are supportive. I could always count on getting their papers back when I sent them home to be signed. They've been very supportive. And also this school too, we had a Hispanic coordinator here. She's just—
Rosanna Perez?
Yeah, Ms. Perez. But she just quit you know and went to work somewhere
else with housing. So I don't know exactly the title of where she is
working. But I mean that was very good. We did, we had a wonderful
fiesta dance last December. And the teachers, the whites, the Spanish,
the blacks, all came out and participated with that. A covered dish
dinner, the piñatas, the dances, it was really great, really great. I
think it was a good education for children who were not really familiar
with what the Hispanics did and some of their customs were. It was a
wonderful learning thing. And I think everybody really enjoyed it. I
think that with Ms. Perez gone, somebody else is really going to have to
take that up. Particularly teachers now are overwhelmed with all they
have to do. I don't know exactly what is going to
So what does it mean now that she's gone? What type of impact does that have on this place in terms of trying to bridge these cultural differences? Not just among the staff but parents as well—
I don't know. I don't really know what is happening with that because that's just occurred here in the last couple of weeks. But I really think they need somebody to fill that spot. In my opinion that was very beneficial because number one she could speak the language. She could deal with the parents. And again how would you feel if you were in a foreign country and you could not speak the language and here was somebody that could help you with those issues who could speak the language, could tell you what was happening at the school. Because sometimes I have to get one of my little boys to translate for me when I call one of my parents to see why her child is not at school. And so he can translate for me and let her know why I'm calling because usually it's to see why they're not at school. So it's—and but I couldn't call on Perez. See heretofore you could say "Ms. Perez, I need you to call such and so parents and I need to find out why they're not at school today. It could be that he's sick. It could be that he missed the bus. It could be any number of reasons." So I don't know but to me it's going to be a real loss for us because I think we were making real progress there. We had bilingual PTA meetings, said in English and then Ms. Perez or Ms. Shaw translated it.
Who's Ms. Shaw?
Ms. Shaw is our English as a Second Language teacher. So I mean we were providing that service for our Hispanic families. And I just hope that we don't get lost to long off track on that.
Is Ms. Shaw the only ESL?
We have her and we just recently got one I think that's half time over here. I'm not sure of her name. But from what I understand, that person is fluent in French, not in Spanish which doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
That doesn't help you
No but, that's sort of how the school system does things. That's why you
wonder sometimes why we don't make the progress we make. But I don't
know, I have not met the lady so I don't know. I
I think again we've covered a little bit of this but I just wanted to see if I could get a sense from you in terms of just the overall impact that Latino students here have made on Eastway as a whole. As far as demographically in terms of how teaching approaches, interactions between the students. What's your sense of all of that in the three years that you've been here and the three years that the school's been here?
Personally, I feel very fortunate because mine have all been working
together very well. I find my regular students versus Hispanic students
are really protective. Because I have one little girl that moved in from
Mexico that does not speak any English but is picking up things pretty
rapidly. But if I forget to give her something in terms of what we are
working on in class, there is always one child that says, "You left
Sophia out. You didn't give Sophia something Ms. Clayton." I also have
found too that I can put the students together with my Hispanic students
for them to read together or to work together and they're really
protective and work with them. I've found that out. I've just been real
appreciative of that. Yeah, they pretty much—and they'll try to explain
the assignments to them so they'll understand it. But what I'm doing
with the little girl that just came straight from Mexico here is to get
my one who was born in Brownsville, Texas but also with a Hispanic
family, get him to translate to Sophia and let her do some of her
lessons in Spanish. Because like her writing a story, letting her write
it in Spanish and then we translate it back. And I think some of the
classes have more Hispanic students in them. Some teachers have no
background at all in Spanish. I took two years in college of Spanish, I
mean Spanish in college so I could get a BA degree instead of a BS
degree. But I would not have been taking anymore Spanish. I mean growing
up in Madison County, the only foreign language, extra language we had
in school, was Latin. So I didn't have any foreign language until I got
to college. That was two years of Spanish. So I have a little background
there, not only of the language but of some of the customs and history
and things like that, that I can draw on. Whereas some of the other
teachers may have had all French or whatever. I think that's
Are there other things—in essence would you say that your teaching style has changed somewhat because of—?
No. I think the only thing that has changed our teaching style somewhat is dealing with the testing. No, not for me. For me, it makes it more interesting. Because I had a girl who was born in Los Angeles but her family was from El Salvador. So I mean to me what can I get from them that I can share with the class. So her grandmother would send in homemade bread and things like this that they did in their family. We would talk about those kinds of things or so several times while I had her, her grandmother sent in homemade bread to share with the class. I've been wanting to get someone to come in and show me how they cut that tissue paper in Mexico because it's so beautiful and so intricate. So but then again we hopped onto, we've got to pass these end of the grade tests. We've got to get test scores up. We haven't had as much time for that lately since we've been concentrating on test scores. But that's the kinds of things that I would like to do. I think when you ask the parents to do those kind of things, they will do it. You just can't say, "Oh no they're not doing anything." Because you haven't asked, if you ask you can usually get some response back. I find that.
You mentioned Ms. Perez is now gone—
Yes—
Are there any other concrete things that Eastway has done to try to adapt to the changing school population?
Well, I mentioned the PTA. And then again, I'm sure Ms. Wagstaff told you
about where the parents came in to work together on learning language.
They did that last year or year before last, maybe last year. I really
don't know right off hand. And then we have a full-time—not every
school, I believe, has
Would you, probably an obvious question, but you would say that these different strategies for coping or dealing with these changes has been successful?
I think so. I think we are very fortunate that we have had the adults working together over here. I think we are very fortunate that we translate our PTA meetings because we have a good turnout of the families for our meetings. Any PTA meeting or general meeting that we have over here, we have a good turnout of the Hispanic families, mothers and fathers. I think that's very good for everybody. So I believe it's going to be very successful.
So to your knowledge, there's been no, I guess, even remote instances of conflict or misunderstanding between black students, Latino students—?
I think there is from time to time for that. I have not really had a bad situation with it in my room, that's all I can say. Some of the others it may be. But you know what? It's just like most other things. They'll call each other names or whatever but then if you're going to pick someone for the softball team or the soccer team or to play soccer with you or whatever, then you're going to pick that person whether you're black, white or Hispanic. So I just think that probably this is just the way things develop. I mean, when I had Ugo, I just loved to watch him kick that soccer ball around. I really wanted him to get out there and teach everybody but he balked at it more than they did because, I don't know. He could've really, he could've done that. It just varies from time to time because sometimes they're very accepting and other times they're not. But I always try to stress when it's like something new no matter whether it's black, white or Hispanic is it's something that you are going to learn from. This is the way they do it in their country so we want to see how that's done. Or this is the way that some people would say it and we would say it this way. Just go like that. This is the way that some people fix food and we would do it a different way. So that they could learn.
What type of, we had talked about the importance of recognizing difference, are there also commonalties between Latino and black students that you've seen that are equally as important to emphasize?
I think it's just true with anybody they want to learn. They want to be successful. They want to do well. They want friends. One of my black students was asking one of the Hispanic students today "are we still friends." So I went over and said something and I forgot what I said and the black student said "but we are friends. He's been my friend. I just want to be sure that he's still my friend." So I think that's true with any of them. I'm sure there are classrooms that probably have more problems with this than others. There are some classrooms that probably have students in there, that maybe all of their students don't speak English. They are coming right straight from Mexico or coming right straight from families where they have only heard the Spanish language. Instead of, I'm really lucky that I have Juan who can usually translate. He can translate from his mother too if I call there. He can translate for his mother. A number of them are doing that.
Do you find yourself sometimes using Spanish in the classroom or do you try to—?
If I do it's very simple little words or little phrases.
But do you feel that it is important to for teachers to do that—?
Oh yes, very definitely. Because I had them to write the other day what they knew about Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah. So of course for Sophia I had to say, or Juan was up there translating for her and I used Feliz Navidad so she'd know I was talking about Christmas. So very little simple phrases if I know. If not, we ask Juan or we ask Sophia to tell us what the Spanish word is for something. Sophia even though she doesn't speak English, she has read a book in Spanish to the class. My teacher assistant also had her one day to read. A lot of the library books are English on one page, Spanish on another. One day when I was out, the teacher assistant had them to read. She read the English page. Sophia read the Spanish page. The kids love that, just love that. "Sophia read to us yesterday, she read to us in Spanish." And that's also a good way to pick up on some of the words. I've always stressed even as a part of my language class where our words come from. We don't have American. We have words that have come from all over the world. So quite often we will just make lists of words we have gotten from Spanish or French or Native Americans or African or Arabic or whatever else. So they can see that you are part of a whole lot of different things.
I think of Eastway as being sort of at the center of the community and
that you guys do a lot of or host a lot of community groups and things
like that. How do you feel that Eastway in terms of its
How to get along with each other and to accept each other. To look for the best in each group that you are dealing with and see what they have to offer. Use all the good qualities of the people that you are working with. Don't spend so much time putting down or complaining, or complaining about what you don't have. Use what you've got and make that strong is what I think they need to really emphasize right there.
Do you think there's one concrete thing or specific thing that Latino parents and black parents could do within the context, or outside of I guess—let me rephrase that—Is there one specific thing that you could cite which would improve race relations that Latinos and blacks could do?
Well, I don't know exactly how, it would have to be some kind of activity like where they could work together and really realize that they are all working for the same thing, for the betterment of their children. But it's very hard to be accepting of that especially when I think that some of the black families are now feeling threatened because they feel like some of the jobs are going to the Hispanics. So therefore, they will be taken away from them. So I think it's hard. Maybe eventually if you've got the Hispanic Center here and you've got the Edgemont Center here and some of these other centers maybe they eventually can draw together and draw people together.
What is the Edgemont Center?
Edgemont, I think is uh, uh, I don't, I think I should say, um at Holloway, and I believe they still have it set up there at that—it's a center over in the housing project in Few Gardens. I do know that a lot of the children go there in the afternoon to work to get their homework, to have somebody to watch over them and go over their homework and things like that. Now what they do with the adults, I really don't know.
And Few Gardens is not that far?
Few Gardens is across the street. No. It's right across the street. When
you come into the entrance of Eastway on Taylor Street, on the other
side are the housing projects there. And I know a lot of people have
worked with the people of that neighborhood. Also there's usually been a
coordinator over there that has worked with the school. But no one has
called me recently because we're all functioning
I understand that you're going to be retiring soon?
Yeah, I should retire in July of'99.
How do you feel about that?
Retiring?
Yeah.
Well I thought, I always thought I probably would not want to. That I would always want to keep working. But now, I don't know whether it's just because I've gotten to that age where I can retire or whether it really is getting more difficult in the schools where I don't seem like I enjoy it as much. But then again that may be going back to that testing issue with end of grade tests. You're so stressed out about trying to get kids grades pulled up and things like that that you have lost a little bit of the pleasure of trying to teach kids a whole lot of knowledge but not necessarily if it's not on the test. That's why we have to do that first before we do anything else. I don't exactly feel sad. I know I'll have to do something where I've still got some contact with people. Now whether it'll be, I don't think I'll substitute because I don't want that name attached to me because when you come in the classroom now, that's not a good thing. Not a good thing.
Students don't respect that.
Not usually. And so but I really thought maybe I could tutor a child a couple days a week. Or if Eastway would stay on the year around schedule, then I could come in and teach during intersession because I have said all along they should have retired teachers teaching intersession so that the regular teachers could have a full three weeks off. I think that would be the best thing to do. I wouldn't mind doing that just like to have some contact back with teaching. Because I really have enjoyed my teaching career and my time and just enjoyed so many of the students that I've had and the things that I've done with them.
We've come to the conclusion of the interview—
Oh.
One final thing though, is there anything that we haven't talked about regarding education or anything else you'd like to add?
I don't really think so. I just hope I've been helpful for you and that you can use some of this. Because as I've said I've enjoyed my experiences and I really think that I've had real varied life as far as education is concerned and the experiences that I've had. I don't feel like I've always been stuck in a rut where everything has been the same or the populations that I've dealt with have been the same. And I really think I've learned a lot from the population that I've dealt with. I think in some ways it's unfortunate a lot of the people, no matter what background they are, have not had the chance to meet and see and observe in lots of ways people are alike in so many ways. And our differences are much smaller than our likenesses are. So I have really enjoyed it. And I'm glad that you asked me to be part of your interview because I've really enjoyed this.
Well thank you on behalf of the Southern Oral History program, I'd like to thank you very much for your time and your participation. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
END OF INTERVIEW