Innovative teaching strategies posed conflicts with school administrators
During the initial desegregation phase, Lorie notes the fears all her students felt. Her creative teaching techniques created an open dialogue which she maintains the school system failed to do. Despite the success of her strategies, Chapel Hill school officials and white parents objected to Lorie's inclusion of black studies course materials into the curriculum. She argues that their opposition reflected the hypocrisy of Chapel Hill liberalism.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Barbara Lorie, February 26, 2001. Interview K-0211. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- MELISSA FROEMMING:
-
And are these white or black, or both?
- BARBARA LORIE:
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This is both. And all of them were scared. "I'm very
scared." This black kid, he's only six feet five or
something like that, you know, built like a
Wahtoosee, scared to death. "I'm scared to come into
this school." "I get sick every morning when I wake
up." I mean, the tragedy is profound! And we're not
talking about it! So I finally said, to hell with this, and I went to
Ms. Lewis. I said, "Ms. Lewis, I think that we need to bring in
some literature about the black experience. Like American Negro poems
and American Negro short stories." "Oh! Now Barbara, I
don't want, I don't think we need, we
don't need to do that. That's not state-adopted
text, and we don't have any money for that, and I just
don't think we need to do that. We just follow the
curriculum, and I want you to do Julius Caesar, and I
want you to do poems, and I want you to do Audin," and you
know, blah blah. I said, "Ms. Lewis, if I get the money, and I
buy the books, is that okay?" "Well I don't
want to know anything about it, I just don't want to know
anything about it." So I went, hmm. So I left, and I thought,
what does she mean, she doesn't want to know anything about
it? That means I can do it, but just don't tell. So I rally
around these people that I knew and got some money together. I ordered
these books, from Dell Publishing I think it was. I ordered the
Autobiography of Malcolm X, I ordered the
Invisible Man, which was just one of the most profound novels
of the twentieth century. I ordered American Negro Short
Stories, American Negro Poetry - anyway I ordered these books
and I had them sent to my house so nobody would know, you know? And I
brought them in a bookbag, in one by one, and handed them out to
everybody. I said, "Let's talk about this.
Let's talk about why we're here, what's
happened, what does this mean?" It was profound. It was, it
was, lots of crying and lots of people, children daring to say things
about what their experience, you know, they were scared to
touch anybody by mistake in a hallway. Or, scared to be
caught sitting next to anybody in the lunchroom, and stuff began to come
out. Finally, I did all kinds of exercises that I had created, stuff
that I had been reading about. Because there was a lot of stuff that
began to come out in literature, not in literature, but in the modern
discourse about how do we deal with this? One of them was this
incredible exercise in Iowa I read about this teacher who had said to
everybody who had blue eyes. Maybe you've heard about this
one? You know, the blue eyed, brown-eyed thing. Well I did that, you
know, and that just really blew everybody's mind totally.
Then there was another one, there was this guy Leonard who was a, I
think his name was Leonard. I read about this huge thing about how we
have to somehow teach our children that we are one. That we are the
spirit, the spirit of life, the spirit that comes through all of us. So
I thought, how can I do that? How can I show them that, you know, that
we're all the same? So I had this idea, I know what
I'll do. I've got this great idea. So I brought in
Junior Walker, this is this great guy, Junior Walker, who was a jazz
guy. I had this record player in the room. In those days it was a record
player. I used to play Junior Walker all the time. I'd play
something jazzy for when the kids were coming in to class. To make them
feel a little free, and body movement and stuff like that. They all
loved it man, they just bugged, you know, everyone is jazzing up, you
know? And I said, "Okay, now I got to do a little
Julius Caesar. Let's do it, let's get on
with Caesar." We'd dance a little bit, you know,
with Julius Caesar. Of course I was very young. Physically I was able to
move around you know, and jazz it up with them myself. I said,
"Okay, we're going to do
something; we are going to do something that's really
great." They went, mmmm. I said, "What I want you to
do tomorrow is bring a blanket. Just bring a blanket, don't
ask any questions, just come." So they all came. I said,
"Okay, and I want you to put your blanket down in a
circle." We moved all the chairs back. "Okay, I want
you to lie down with your feet pointing towards the center, and lie down
on your blanket. Now, hold hands with the person next to you. I
don't want you to say anything. I'm going to turn
off the lights. I'm going to put on a record, and
we're just going to lie here, and we're gonna just
think about what it's like that this energy is going all
around this circle. And that we're all the same." So
I did that. And we lay there for forty minutes. Finally I turned on the
light. They got up. We put the room back. The buzzer rang and they left.
One of those kids told me it was the most profound experience
he'd had in his entire high school career. Because it was so,
he got it. He got it. He understood it. So, of course, the next day, the
loudspeaker: "Ms. Lorie, the superintendent would like to see
you if it's possible. If you could run down there after
school he would really appreciate that." I said,
"Well, I'd be glad to." So that was the
beginning of my dialogue, which was never a dialogue with the
superintendent, Dr. Cody. But he was a white, Anglo Saxon, Protestant
male, and he was doing the best he could, and he didn't
understand anything. Because he was a victim of public schools in
America. He was a victim of being a white, Anglo Saxon Protestant male,
and he wasn't enlightened. He wasn't anything. He
was just doing his job. So here he had this nutsy teacher who was doing
all these creative, wacko things first of all, and she was big! You
know, I was a lot bigger than Cody! So I walked in
there, "Ms. Lorie, I'm really, good to see you,
good, have a seat, have a seat." "Dr. Cody
it's really nice to be here. Now what's on your
mind?" "Well, you know, I don't presume to
question what you're teaching. I just wanted to know what,
you know; I'm just hearing things from parents that concern
me. So I wanted to know if you could tell me what's going on
in your classroom?" So I tried to explain to him the spiritual
life, and how important it is. Well, come on, "I certainly
appreciate you coming down, but I wonder if you could get back to Julius
Caesar?" I said, "Yes, don't you worry, Dr.
Cody, we're going to do Julius Caesar! I promise
you." You know that was it, that was the routine. I would do
these way out wacko things, and then I was constantly being called on
either by Ms. Marshbanks in the principal's office, or Dr.
Cody's office. It was sort of like, it was a drop in the
bucket. Because the prejudice in Chapel Hill was just as bad as it was
anywhere in the South. Racism was rampant...