Foster, Michele. (1997). Black Teachers on Teaching. Reviewed by V.P. Franklin

Foster, Michele. (1997). Black Teachers on Teaching. New York: The New Press. 188 pp. Reviewed by V.P. Franklin Drexel University January 6, 1998 The American public was recently exposed to the trials and tribulations of the African American female educators during the first half of twentieth century in the immensely popular dual-autobiography Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years (1993). Both Sadie and Bessie Delany spent some time teaching in the segregated public schools in the South, and Sadie Delany described her career as an educator in the New York City public schools as well. Much of the sage advice and pithy nostrums found in the work by the Delany sisters is also found in the interviews with twenty African American educators recorded by Michele Foster. Although none matched the Delany sisters in longevity, "the Elders" recorded in Black Teachers on Teaching present ideals and advice based on years of experience on the public educational front lines. Lawrence Lovelace, who taught for years at Wendell Phillips High School on Chicago's South Side, declared that "the one thing that black students don't need is teachers who let them get away with saying, 'I can't do this, I can't do that'--teachers who feel sympathetic because the students are black, or they are from the inner city, teachers who let them get away with doing nothing." Lovelace recalled that in the past, "black teachers demanded more of their students and didn't care whether there was anything in it for them." Unfortunately, things have changed and now Lovelace feels particularly disturbed "when I see black teachers letting black students get away with doing nothing" (pp. 47-48). The twenty educators were asked to describe the social and cultural environment they grew up in, the schools they attended, and the educators who most affected them and their decision to enter the teaching profession. The elders commented on the impact of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision on them, their schools, and their students, while the veterans and novices focused on the current social and economic conditions that have an impact on their ability to make a difference in black children's lives. While hundreds of African American teachers in the separate black public schools in the southern states lost their positions as a result of school integration, Bernadine B. Morris was one of a handful of African Americans allowed to teach in formally all-white schools in Hampton, Virginia. Morris was forced to leave the Union School and work at the Booker Elementary School under a white principal, "a real redneck" who did not want the black teachers there. "The principal treated the black students unfairly and often paddled them, but I've never heard where he hit a white kid with a paddle" (pp. 59-60). Black parents complained and after a few years, the principal resigned "but he had managed to do a lot of damage by then" (p. 60). Etta Joan Marks was forcably transferred from an all-black to an all-white school in Linsdale, Texas, but recalled that "in spite of all the problems I encountered, I was more fortunate tha[n] many black teachers. Most of those who worked with me in the segregated schools didn't have jobs." Marks was not allowed to teach a regular class for the first two years she was there. It was only after she went and complained to the district superintendent that she was given a regular third grade class. "Afterward, I began to get a lot of parental requests to have their children placed in my classes. That's when I realized that at least some parents had some confidence in my teaching ability" (p. 86). The significant decline in the number of African Americans going into the field of elementary and secondary school teaching became apparent in some places as early as the 1970s. For example, English teacher Lorraine Lawrence mentioned that "when I came to Orlando [Florida] in 1975, I got a position in a junior high school and later a high school because the schools had been desegregated and the principals needed a certain percentage of black teachers" (p. 96). But what she found at the desegregated schools was that "the black students don't get pushed enough." The few in the honors classes participate in school activities, however, "the majority of black students . . . are generally left out" (p. 98). Lawrence grew up in a small town in Oklahoma and attended the all-black school, where "our teachers could see our potential even when we couldn't, and they were able to draw out our potential." She has been accused of "romanticizing segregation" and the conditions in the all-black schools. But Lawrence was clear about what she was suggesting: "I don't want to go back to those days. But there are lessons that can be learned from my experiences and thousands of black people like me" (p. 99). Edouard Plummer has taught junior high school in Harlem, New York City, since the early 1960s and he had witnessed the changes in the teachers there over the years. In the early years the teachers were dedicated. Now, "they come with this 'I don't care' attitude about the children: 'I've got mine, you get yours' . . . Too many teachers let the children do as they please. They let them sit up there, laugh, talk, and play" (p. 108). As a result the children do not learn to read, write, or do mathematics, and thus cannot compete in the larger society. Plummer had a very concrete plan for changing these conditions. If I had the power to reconstruct schools, I would change them from the top to bottom. First, everyone would be accountable, starting from the principal on down. You start at the top. If you have a good top, then you can go on down. If the teachers cannot pull their weight, they should be out. Those who aren't teaching should be given the support to learn how to teach effectively, but if they didn't improve within a year or two, then they would be out (p. 109). This is the kind of perceptive counsel and advice that is liberally spread throughout these interviews. However, in order to get to these statements, the student or researcher would have to read through all the interviews and take extensive notes because the book has no index. The introduction by Michele Foster is not much help either because there is so little background information provided on African American educators. Foster is clearly unfamiliar with the literature and did not bother to search out information, while claiming that "there was never a book—until this one—devoted entirely to a narrative rendering of [black teachers'] experiences" (p. xix). She does not define what she means by "narrative rendering," but there certainly have been numerous narratives that attempted to render the experiences of African Americans educators. For example, Foster ignored (or did not know about) Nathan Wright, Jr.'s What Black Educators Are Saying, published in 1970, which included narrative renderings "by some of the leading black educators" who were "striving not for the lesser good of human betterment but for nothing short of the greatest good of complete human liberation and fulfillment" (p. v). Among the voices included in the impressive volume was that of John Churchville who opened an independent, Afrocentric school in Philadelphia in the 1970s. In her sample Foster included no "life histories" of black educators who opened independent elementary or secondary schools. Foster failed to mention or even cite the important information on African American educators historically found in the works by James D. Anderson, Linda M. Perkins, Michael Fultz, and others. Even worse, when Foster does mention the findings on the conditions for African American educators in the past, she fails to cite the source for the information. Thus she has an extended discussion of the conditions for black teachers in the Philadelphia public schools up to the 1950s using the information found in my book, The Education of Black Philadelphia: The Social and Educational History of A Minority Community, 1900-1950 (1979), but this work is nowhere cited in the notes. There are discussions of the American Teachers Association, and its branches in the South, but Thelma Perry's History of the American Teachers Association (1975) and the numerous articles on the black national and state teachers organizations are not cited. She discusses the problems for African American educators in urban school systems (even in Washington, D.C), but seems to be unaware of Catherine B. Silver's Black Teachers in Urban Schools: The Case of Washington, D.C. (1973). The numerous spelling and typographical errors found throughout the book and the absence of a bibliography suggests that this volume was hurriedly put together by Foster with little editorial supervision from the New Press. However, the African American educators who agreed to be interviewed and to share their experiences and professional lives with the interviewer deserve better. Perhaps in future editions of the work, Foster and her publisher will "do the right thing." References Delany, S. L., Delany, A. E., & Hearth, A. H. (1993). Having our say: The Delany sisters' first 100 years. New York: Dell Publishers. Franklin, V. P. (1979). The education of Black Philadelphia: The social and educational history of a minority community, 1900-1950. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Perry, T. D. (1975). History of the American Teachers Association. Washington, DC: National Education Association. Silver, C. B. (1973). Black teachers in urban schools: The case of Washington, D.C.. New York: Praeger. Wright, N. (ed.) (1970). What Black educators are saying. New York: Hawthorn Books.