Tag Archives: Elementary Teachers

Clara Belle Williams: First in the Hearts of New Mexico State University

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Many African American teachers are distinguished for their firsts. One of these is Clara Belle Williams, a beloved New Mexico educator who was the first Black student to graduate from New Mexico State University (NMSU).

Clara Belle Drisdale was born in Plum, Texas, in October 29, 1885. As a young woman, she attended Prairie View Normal and Independent College in Prairie View, Texas. The institution is now known as Prairie View A & M University. A brilliant and diligent student, Clara Belle was named valedictorian of her graduating class in 1908.

After her graduation from college, Clara Belle accepted a teaching position at Booker T. Washington Elementary School in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where she taught for more than 20 years. During this time, Las Cruces public schools were segregated. While teaching in 1928, she enrolled in summer school courses at the New Mexico College of Agriculture & Mechanic Arts (NMCA&MA). Shamefully, many of her professors would not allow her inside the classroom because she was Black. But that didn’t stop the intrepid teacher. She took notes from the hallway, while standing up. Clara Belle finally earned her Bachelor’s Degree in English from NMCA&MA in 1937. She was 51 years old at the time. Always a lifelong learner, Clara Belle continued her education well beyond her graduation date, taking graduate level classes into the 1950’s.

In 1917, Clara Belle married Jasper Williams. The union produced three sons: Jasper, James, and Charles. When her sons were grown, all three of them attended college and graduated with medical degrees.

During her lifetime, Clara Belle Williams was awarded many honors.  In 1961, New Mexico State University  named Williams Street on the main campus in her honor. Additionally, NMSU conferred an an honorary doctorate upon her in 1980. The university named Sunday, February 13, 200t, Clara Belle Williams Day. Included in the festivities was the renaming of the NMSU English Building as Clara Belle Williams Hall.

This remarkable educator passed away at the age of 108 on July 3, 1994, in Chicago, Illinois. She was interred at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois. To learn more about Clara Belle, click on this link: New Mexico State University Library.

Teacher Pernella Mae Anderson: Collector of African American Slave Narratives and Folklore

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Many talented classroom teachers become known for accomplishments outside of the classroom. One such teacher is Pernella Mae Anderson, an elementary teacher who worked in Arkansas and Michigan who was also an important collector of African American folklore.

Pernella Mae Center Anderson was born April 12, 1903 in Camden, Ouachita County, Arkansas. She was the youngest of ten children born to Willis and Sallie (Washington) Center. Her father was a carpenter and her mother was a housewife. When Pernella was only two years old, her mother died, and two years later her father remarried.

When Pernella grew up, she married Theodore Haynie, Jr., (circa 1920) and the union produced three children. Between 1922-1924, the young mother attended Arkansas Baptist College, where she earned a liberal arts degree. Evidently, Pernella divorced Theodore and, on April 21, 1931, she married her second husband, William W. Anderson.

In 1935, the Pernella accepted a teaching position in Lockesburg in Sevier County, Arkansas. The following year, she went to work for the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), an organization associated with the New Deal-era Works Progress Administration (WPA). Pernella’s work included collecting oral histories, some of which were published in the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves (1941). Additionally, she collected the folk stories of Black residents ranging in age from 19 to 92. Pernella was one of only two African Americans hired to do this work.

A lifelong learner, Pernella went back to school in 1944 to earn her teaching certificate, and then she completed the requirements for her Bachelor’s in Education from Grambling State University in Grambling, Louisiana. From 1953-1955, Pernella taught school at Carver Elementary School in El Dorado in Arkansas’ Union County. In 1955, Pernella moved to Detroit, Michigan, and taught in Detroit public schools until the conclusion of her career.

This talented teacher and folklorist passed away on March 5, 1980, in Detroit. She is interred in Westlawn Cemetery in the town of Wayne, Wayne County, Michigan.

You can read more about this remarkable educator at this link: Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. To learn more about the Federal Writers’ Project, click on this link: FWP at the Library of Congress.

Marva Collins: From One-Room School House to Innovative Educator

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Many talented educators come from humble backgrounds, yet manage to make the most of their modest beginnings. Such is the case with Marva Collins, a Chicago educator who earned national recognition for her innovative teaching methods.

Marva Delores Knight was born August 31, 1936, in Monroeville, Alabama, the first of two daughters born to businessman Henry and Bessie (Nettles) Knight. Raised in the heart of the segregated South, Marva attended a one-room school house and learned first-hand about the substandard educational opportunities offered to African American students. Nevertheless, her father expected her to study hard and succeed.

As a young woman, Marva attended Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia. After college, she taught school for two years. In 1959, the young woman moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she met and married draftsman Clarence Collins. The couple had three children. For the next 14 years, while raising her family, Marva worked as a substitute teacher in the Chicago School District.

Marva became concerned with youngsters she believed were not being served well by the school system, so in 1975 she withdrew $5,000 from her retirement account and founded a private school on the second floor of her home in the Chicago neighborhood of Garfield Park. Thus was born the Westside Preparatory School. Only a few students enrolled, but the dedicated educator resolved that her school would be open to any student who was not succeeding in the larger school systems, particularly low-income children, and those who’d been diagnosed with irremediable learning disabilities. At the end of the first year of the school’s operation, every student enrolled in Westside Prep earned test scores significantly higher than they had scored in previous years.

Marva’s methods became known as the Collins Method. Her program centered on phonics, math, reading, Language Arts, and the classics. She was also a big believer in the Socratic Method, which emphasizes learning through asking questions and engaging in dialogue with peers. “The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another,” Marva once said.

The talented educator and her innovative school quickly became a national story, featured in stories in the magazines Time and Newsweek and in television news programs 60 Minutes and Good Morning America. In 1982, the story of Marva’s life and school were the subjects of a television movie starring powerhouse actors Cicely Tyson and Morgan Freeman.

For her pioneering teaching methods, Marva was honored with the Watson Washburn Award from the Reading Reform Foundation (1978), the Jefferson Award for Public Service (1981) and the Humanitarian Award for Excellence. Marva also received the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the Monroe County Heritage Association during Black History Month (1994). In addition, she was awarded honorary doctorates from Amherst, Dartmouth, and Notre Dame. President George W. Bush honored the chalkboard champion with the National Humanities Medal (2004). To read more about this amazing teacher, click on the link for www.biography.com or the link For the Kids’ Sake.

Marva Collins died of natural causes on June 24, 2015, in Beaufort County, South Carolina. She was 78 years old.

Journalist Barbara Demick tells the story of Mi-ran, the North Korean Kindergarten Teacher who Defected

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The country of North Korea and its quarrelsome Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un have taken top billing in the news quite a bit recently, and with the upcoming Winter Olympic Games scheduled in Pyeong Chang, South Korea, we’re likely to hear a lot more. You can learn a great deal about the political climate of the two Koreas, as told by the citizens themselves, by reading a fascinating book entitled Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, written by award-winning journalist Barbara Demick.

The volume traces the lives of six ordinary North Korean citizens who were raised to accept without question the totalitarianism of the Kim regime. One by one, each of these citizens experiences a life-altering disillusionment with their Supreme Leader, and each ultimately feels compelled to attempt defection from their inhuman conditions. Eventually, each one escapes into the welcoming arms of South Korea.

One of these individuals was Mi-ran, a neophyte kindergarten teacher assigned to a school near her girlhood home of Chongjin. Mi-ran dearly loved her little students, but although she faced her class each day with the most cheerful attitude she could muster, she soon became embittered by her government’s expectation that she systematically brainwash her kids into believing they had “nothing to envy” while she watched them die a slow, agonizing death from starvation. The riveting story of Mi-ran’s defection, and the sweetheart she left behind, make fascinating reading. Equally engrossing are the stories of the other five defectors included in the book, one of whom is Mi-ran’s lost love.

Up to now, when Americans think of North Korea, we see only the menacing visage of Kim Jong-Un. The stories of these six ordinary citizens who have survived in, and escaped from, one of the most repressive governments in the world bring a humanizing perspective to that nation.

The book, first published in 2009, was named a National Book Award finalist and was similarly recognized by the National Book Critics Circle. You can find Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick on amazon.com.

San Francisco Teacher Ninive Clements Calegari and Her Innovative Educational Program

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One of the most pleasurable aspects of teaching is the vast opportunity the profession provides for innovation and creativity. Here is an inspirational video about a visionary teacher from San Francisco, Ninive Clements Calegari. Among Ninive’s wonderful accomplishments is the co-founding of a program called 826 Valencia, a nonprofit organization which supports writing skills and literary arts for under-resourced students age 6-18. Watch this presentation to learn more about this remarkable teacher and her leading-edge educational program.