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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Stella Nickerson, January 20, 2001. Interview K-0554. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Teachers support students at Lincoln

In this excerpt, Nickerson remembers that teachers at Lincoln High School were consistently, if silently, supportive of their students. Other interviewees have not suggested that their teachers were silent, but Nickerson comes to the same conclusion about the degree of involvement in their students' academic lives.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Stella Nickerson, January 20, 2001. Interview K-0554. 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

BG: What were the teachers like? Could you generalize? Or if you can’t generalize, talk about specific classes. You don’t have to mention teachers’ names. SN: They were—well I know that the teachers, I basically looked up to them. They were respected. And the classes were all business. Some made it very fun. Some made sure that you definitely went as far as you could go, as far as introducing information to you and making sure you knew how to do certain things. BG: Did you feel they encouraged you? SN: Yes. I guess it was a silent encouragement. I think it’s basically the way they treated the students in the class and then the dedication they had for what they were doing. That was an encouragement for you to try. BG: How did you see them as being dedicated? SN: Because of the fact that they were there for the students, they talked to the students. It was not just coming in the classroom and doing your lessons and then leaving. They would stop and have conversations with you on how things were going, if you needed help with anything. If you needed to stay in during the recess time to work on something, they were there to help you out. And also they were very strict, too. If there were something you hadn’t done, you had to stay in and get it done.