Getting to talk with the Trio Director, Ms Veronica Reed was not too much of a hassle because I work in the same office with her. We scheduled an appointment and she kept to it. But one thing that really interests me is that, she is really much interested in my project topic because, McNair Scholars Program is part of TRIO and she is actively involved in getting people into graduate school. Before and during the interview, she was enthusiastic in responding to all my questions.
She talked a lot about how she acquired literacy by reading the bible and getting meanings of bible words from the dictionary as child living with her grandmother. Reading and writing according to her started the same time. As she learnt how to read from her grandma, so also she learnt how to read. She started reading and writing from home. At the advance level of her education, she had no access to scholarships. In fact she did not know such things existed anyway. It was only student loans that that she thought were available to her. When I asked her question about McNair scholar program because it has existed for a long time, she told me, she didn’t know they had free grants during her time. And so, she was not able to make use of the opportunity.
On her response to how she is contributing to the Norris Community as a member of the Mount Moriah church, she told me that she helps the kids in the Sunday schools by teaching them how to read the word of God, and the aim is to make them better citizens. She is not only concerned with the church alone, but also concerned about her own immediate family members. She does that by contributing to their education; she buys books for some, and pays the tuition of others.
As far as education of the black people are concerned, Reed says, it is like a dream, and many African-Americans are still not a interested in going to school because it is a generational thing. She mentioned that any body interested in school would like to make sure that pages of the text books are missing. She compared the unequal educational system in South Dallas to that of North Dallas. She said it is never the same but did not provide specific differences. But her experience in graduate was awesome.
The Moore’s meeting was a memorable one for that matter. Like I mentioned in my first field notes and conceptual memo on them, I learnt a lot interacting with them. One of the things I learnt is that, they are ever ready to answers questions from as far back as 1949 when they were still very young couples. Secondly, he helped to establish the TRIO programs in Texas A&M University-Commerce to help the African-Americans and the low income/underrepresented in both upward bound and students support services to prepare high school kids for college.
Also as the first black Mayor of Commerce, he was able to collaborate with the government to provide light, water, road etc to the Norris Community.
Brittany Edwards is another African-American I interviewed. She is an undergraduate student whose long term goal is to become a medical doctor. It took me more than two weeks to get her to talk to me. We had to schedule appointment to meet at the library on the 5th floor. As a matter of fact, she started her childhood literacy with the help of her mother. Throughout the interview period, she did not mention her father’s contribution to her acquisition of literacy. Her mother read to her comic books and children magazines. She told me that she did not learn how to write separately, but reading and writing started together as far as she can remember.
She happens to attend Mount Moriah church here in commerce, and when I asked her how she contributes to the growth of the church, she told me she supports the pastor in the church like “ride on pastor” “Yes Sir” and the rest of them. She loves going there because the pastor’s method of preaching correlates with her own level of social life. She specifically said the young pastor is a “modern guy who knows how to move the spirits of the young people”.
She told me that becoming a McNair Scholar will help her achieve her dreams of becoming a medical Doctor. She would like to attain the level of education that her parents did not get to which is very interesting. She said it is true that many black people don’t go to graduate school, but that she would like to be a different person with different dreams.
Belows Marvin is another undergraduate student in the department of psychology. It was really hard to get him to do an interview with me because of his class schedule. When I approached him on this, he accepted and told me the only problem would be time. Well, we fixed a date for us to meet and talk, and finally we also met on the 5th floor in the library. His childhood literacy acquisition was an interesting one because he had his mother who was very cooperative. She read to him comic books and children magazines. Learning how to write was not easy for Bellows because he had to undergo some special therapy to learn to do that.
Becoming a McNair Scholar is one of the things he would love to achieve so that he could get help to go to graduate school. His long term goal is to help people through is career.
Conceptual Memo on the entire participants and the re-occurring theme
The oral interviews with the participants have recurring theme of reading and writing which is their experiences about their childhood literacy acquisition and advance literacy. While the older people like Reed and the Moores’ talked about how they started reading from their homes with the bible and the help of family members just like both Shirley Brice Heath and Deborah Brandt explained in their books; Ways with Words and Literacy in American Lives. Bellows Marvin and Brittany Edwards have a different view and experience about literacy. What they have in common is that, their mother’s read to them comic books and children magazines and that helped them facilitates their acquisition. While the Moores’ and Reed level of acquisition was more intense because of the time period which was before and during integration when some of the pages of their textbooks were missing, and those that were complete were old and used books from white schools. Edwards and Marvin had theirs in more recent times when the pages of the textbooks are complete and new.
No comments:
Post a Comment