I really had one major goal for this Saturday...to get caught up on grading so I can plan on Sunday before going to a celebration of life for my colleague at UCONN who passed, Dr. Jason Courtmanche. I made it from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m., but realized I couldn't see my screen any more because my eyes were watering. As always in April, however, I took the time to do the #VerseLove25 challenge, which was to recall a text that changed your thinking, for me it was Phyllis Wheatley's., To The Right Honorable William, Early of Dartmouth, that we read in a Dr. Carol Boyce Davies class for African American Literature. The class was important because it helped me to begin questioning access to education, but also how much 'formal language' traditions needed to be mastered, even to be considered amongst the aristocracy. To be a person of letters, especially from a race brutalized through American history, one needed to master language and use their forms. The inequities and barbaric treatment of black writers and thinkers continued, but it was then I saw for the first time the harshness of our educational systems.
I chose to take the last word in each line of her 18th century poem to write back to her in this time of history, all while recalling my 30+ years as an educator, working for the educational excellence of all students. Dr. Alfred Tatum helped me to see the importance of textual lineages and Dr. Davies' course, as always, was crucial to my intellectual transitions which led me to where I am today. Ah, America. I still hope it may one day get itself right.
