i wonder what happened to the people who wrote these books. what is lisa delpit doing now? where is she teaching? did she follow up on her work? did kozol get a grant or start a rescue project? was there a rumble when these books hit the academic community? the info is not new and is sadly, repeated again and again in many schools across america but what is being done?
when i first came to burke county i taught in a school where the sky was easily viewed thru the holes in the roof or walls. the building had asbestos everything. the stairs were so old the brick was worn in a curve in the middle where thousands of listless feet had trudged. the wooden floors were in some strange stage of half rot. we had very little furniture and not enough books. i was shocked. the piece d'resistance was the year i taught in a burned out trailer. there was no underpining and all the walls had been ripped out. conduit pipe was on the ceiling carrying the "new" wiring. they put in a plywood floor which they threw some indoor/outdoor carpeting on. we had two temperatures... .too hot and too cold.
one of my math lessons was an estimation of the time it would take for the roof to cave in before a leak broke the sheet rock tape on the ceiling.
(our estimates were pretty close).
when the wind blew, the door went with it, trying to break free from its squeaky old hinges. one tiny little girl opened the door on a windy day and was lifted literally off the ground, hanging on by the door knob. one of my more humorous students suggested we write about the day candice blew to alabama. we did and it was a wonderful story.
the final drama came on testing week. (love those eog tests). a wild dog made its home under the trailer and had a litter of, naturally, untouchable ferral pups. i informed the principal. nothing happened. the mother dog got very protective about the pups and started growling anytime we entered the trailer. parents complained that i was keeping dogs. yep. intentionally i was harboring wild dogs under my trailer. gosh darn crazy woman from the big city.
finally the principal, on the day of testing where complete quiet is required, called the animal control people. they showed up just as i was passing out the pencils. about the time we started part one we could hear 'bodacious swearin' on the part of the officers and ferocious growling on the part of the mother dog.
the children were horrified. then a huge fight, the sounds of more swearing, growling, barking, biting and finally a gunshot. yep. one little girl whimpered" they are hurting our puppies. i can't work." enough is enough. i marched outside to confront the aggressors.
things have changed.i have solid walls, furntiture, heating and cooling, books, computers, and a tv vcr( which i bought with the pennies and nickels my children saved for a year). i feel like i now live in the land of plenty but what about these other places? what happened?
does anyone have a contact address for these two authors? writing the books was an excellent way to reach many people but WHAT NOW?