Kindergarten in a Black School

A White Teacher Believes 60 Young Black Lives Matter

In 1967 we moved to Alexandria, Virginia for my husband’s year-long internship on Capitol Hill. I applied for a teaching job and ended up in an all Black school receiving Headstart money for kindergarten

Experienced White Supervisor Interviews a Young White Teacher

We settled into our small apartment in Alexandria, Virginia, close to easy public transportation for my husband’s commute into D.C. I applied for a job teaching kindergarten or first grade. I got an interview right away.

A well-dressed white woman greeted me, and after few pleasantries asked the “important” questions.

“MaryJo, would it be ok with you if you had a Black child in your class?”

“Of course,” I answered, startled by what I thought a very odd question.

“Five Black children?”

“No problem.”

“What if half your class was Black, how would you feel?”

“That’s fine.”

“What about Black teachers in the school?”

“That’s OK.”

This line of questioning continued until I replied to the final question: “Yes, it’s fine with me if I’m one of two white teachers, that all the other teachers and the principal are Black. And that all my students are Black.

She offered me a job at Charles Houston Elementary School. I accepted.

“Oh, by the way,” she added, “You’ll get a Black teacher’s aide, paid for from Head Start funds allotted to the school.” Little did I realize at the time that I wouldn’t have made it through the first week without Mrs. Lightfoot, a wise and loving woman about my Mother’s age.

The supervisor who had interviewed me forgot to mention that these Southern children spoke with a Black/Southern “accent.” A couple weeks went by before this naive, white girl from Denver could consistently understand what the children were saying. Mrs. Lightfoot patiently “translated” for me.

Teacher Prep Days

Once in my kindergarten room, I realized this was unlike any other school I’d been in. Charles Houston School was filthy, in desperate need of painting and repairs. My room was stacked with dusty, moldy stuff from other rooms, most of which got tossed. The room had been a storeroom until Head Start money paid for kindergarten for underprivileged kids. The kindergarten bathroom smelled, with urine stains on the floor and grime coating the sink.

Mrs. Lightfoot and I threw ourselves into scrubbing and cleaning. The Principal stopped by to see how we were doing. He chastised us for doing work that shouldn’t be done by professionals such as ourselves.

No janitor appeared on the scene. We continued to clean. We cleaned every day all year long. The art room where the kids got to do special projects with the art teacher once a week was even worse than the kindergarten room. Mrs. Lightfoot and I decided no more art classes. Too many mouse droppings in the art supplies. Too much mold.

The art teacher was relieved. Adding two classes of kindergartners was too much. She could barely fit our children into her schedule. The art teacher had long since gotten used to the filth. She’d given up.

Supplies, easily available in a white public school, were scare at Charles Houston. Tables needed replacing, broken chairs fixed. I knew nothing was lacking in the white schools in affluent neighborhoods in Alexandria. It didn’t matter that my school and those schools belonged to the same school district. It seemed like I spent half my salary on supplies, crayons, storybooks, finger paints, and toys, not to mention paying for cleaning supplies.

It wasn’t all bad. Most of the excellent teachers cared deeply for the children as did the lunchroom staff and women in the office. Having long gotten used to being considered 2nd class citizens, these hard-working Black women, like the art teacher, accepted the shoddy, dirty conditions of the school, lack of supplies, and heavily used, outdated textbooks.

Mrs. Lightfoot showed me how what I had assumed wasn’t true at this school. My experience was based on student teaching with white middle-class kindergartners. I learned from her that Black kids without enough to eat, no books at home, and living in the “projects” needed to start somewhere else than the kindergarten curriculum I’d been taught.

We practiced talking. We practiced talking about the story books we’d just heard. We talked about everyday things like “Janie, what did you see on your way to school this morning?” Sitting in a circle, we talked first thing every morning and first thing every afternoon.

We had a rule that you had to say more than “yes” or “no.” Kindergarteners had to say at least three words when called on after raising their hand. Everyone practiced saying their name: “My name is Daphne.” It was hard at first but didn’t take long before we no longer had to count three words.

Soon the children improved conversation skills and could tell simple stories. One sharp little girl realized right away that saying one’s name was four words. Then I asked, “what if you added your last name? How many words would that be?” A few raised their hands right away.

We practiced supporting each other. Everyone clapped for a child who spoke out clearly after having trouble saying their full name preceded by “My name is . . .

We learned fingerplays. I bought toy instruments, and we played “marching band.” We sang songs. We practiced going up and down stairs for fire drills because the projects were one-story buildings. Most children had never been in a two-story building.

Lunch and What’s in a Pocket

Dwayne, one of the largest kindergarteners, was enrolled in afternoon kindergarten. Sometimes he came early during morning kindergarten, waiting patiently for his older brother to be in the lunchroom. Sitting at his brother’s table, he’d eat what the others at the table didn’t finish. Or he’d arrive long after afternoon kindergarten had started and be disappointed that he’d missed lunch.

Intuitively I knew that white school rules like “be on time” wouldn’t work at Charles Houston Elementary School. Dwayne couldn’t tell time and nobody was home. He hadn’t had breakfast or lunch. Mrs. Lightfoot showed him where the hands were on the clock in order to get to school in time for lunch.

I talked a feisty, stubborn lunchroom manager into giving him big kids’ lunch. She wasn’t supposed to feed even little kids’ lunch to kindergartners because they only came half a day. I convinced her to break two rules.

I promised Dwayne would eat everything on his plate. That he wouldn’t waste food. Told her I’d take the blame if she got in trouble. She didn’t. We became friends, and later she confided that I was right: Dwayne was hungry. He ate everything on his plate every day. He was a good boy and never caused any trouble.

One day Suzette, the smallest and most talkative of the girls, asked if I wanted to see what was in her pocket. She’d brought something to school to show me. I said “of course, I want to see what you have.” Suzette reached into her pocket and pulled out a dead mouse.

She wasn’t playing a trick on me or being silly. I explained that perhaps we should bury the dead mouse in the waste basket. She said proudly, “Oh, we have lots more of them at home.”

The Kindergarteners Go on a Field Trip

With extra money from Head Start, Mrs. Lightfoot and I planned an outing for the children, some of whom had never been further than they could walk. We’d take them on the train to Washington. See the magnificent Union Station and back to Alexandria on the train.

We commandeered six moms to come along and got permission slips signed — no easy task! We made the complicated arrangements of getting the afternoon kids to come in the morning so we could all go together.

Some parents couldn’t arrange for their afternoon kids to come in the morning. Others said it wasn’t safe. Mrs. Lightfoot and I were secretly relieved when a parent said “no.” We knew that if everyone could come, we might not be able to manage sixty 5-year olds.

We read story books about trains. Talked about train tracks and how lots of cars were pulled by an engine. Learned what a caboose was. Sang train songs. Made train noises. Pretended we were trains. Drew pictures of trains.

Finally the day arrived. The children, dressed in their Sunday best, lined up to board the train. One little guy got so scared he cried. Mrs. Lightfoot held his hand. I held the hands of two I feared would wander away. It was too exciting!

Having walked around Union station for a few minutes, we got in line to wait for the train back to Alexandria. I looked around and noticed three white women talking and staring at us. Oh dear, was one of the kids misbehaving? I looked around. Nope. Nothing wrong.

I asked Mrs. Lightfoot if she spotted anything. She laughed, “Honey, those women have never seen a white woman with seven Black women and 50 Black kids. And they’ve probably never seen a woman as tall as you are. Besides the children are too scared to misbehave!”

In the End

By June my kindergarteners weren’t ready for “reading readiness,” but these precious kiddos had learned a lot. They had more self confidence from all the practice we’d done “talking.” Now they could speak up, answer a question, or ask for what they needed. They’d had fun and been loved.

Dwayne got a big kids’ lunch every day, and Suzette never brought another dead mouse to school. They’d been to our nation’s capitol if only to Union Station. They’d ridden a train. And they could all quickly and easily go up and down a flight of stairs. We had flunked the first two fire drills which annoyed our principal.

I took home twice the salary while Mrs. Lightfoot did the heavy lifting. I had white privilege and the college degree that went with it. She had the experience.

My short tenure at an all Black elementary school was 13 years after the Supreme Court, in Brown versus the Board of Education, ruled that segregation in schools was unconstitutional. Segregation, even though illegal, was alive and well.

The Board of Education in Alexandria wasn’t committing a crime. Kids went to neighborhood schools. If their neighborhood was in a predominately Black neighborhood that included the “projects,” their school was, by default, segregated.

Looking Back

It’s been fifty-two years since my year at Charles Houston Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia and now 65 years after Brown versus The Board of Education. I’m back home in Denver. One might assume that the Denver Public Schools would be integrated.

However, The Denver Post reported in 2019 that more than half of Denver’s public schools are segregated. (https://www.denverpost.com/2019/09/08/denver-school-segregation/)

For example, the Montbello neighborhood is about 9 miles from or 22 minutes from East High School, considered one of the best high schools in Denver. 18 miles from South High School, another excellent high school in Denver.

Denver boasts school choice. But school choice from Montbello to East or South would require transportation not only back and forth to school, but to extra curricular activities, parties at friends’ houses, and sport programs. Segregated Montbellow High School enrolls mostly students from Hispanic families. Many will have parents for whom English is a second language and grandparents living with the family who speak only Spanish.

Until we learn to live next door to each other and in the same neighborhoods, school segregation will continue. Segregated schools go hand in hand with poverty and lack of opportunity.

Our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren deserve better.

Notes:

1. The School’s namesake: “Charles Hamilton Houston (September 3, 1895-April 22, 1950) was a black lawyer who helped play a role in dismantling the Jim Crow laws and helped train future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall.” (https://www.naacp.org/naacp-history-charles-hamilton-houston/)
2. “During the desegregating years, Charles Houston Elementary School closed and the building eventually burned down. This site is now home to the Charles Houston Recreation Center.” (https://www.acps.k12.va.us/domain/1321)

For more about Black Lives Matter from a white perspective, see my story For White Folks from an Old Gray-Haired White Woman with Arthritis. You might also like musings on Staying at Home because of COVID 19: The Good, The Bad, and the Not So Ugly.

If you’re a writer or a wannabe writer, take a look at my week of Writing a Memoir challenge.

My writing focuses on adoption, in addition to words of wisdom for ADHDers. (Not only do I suffer from ADHD, but so do a large number of adopted folks.)

One trick for ADHDers is To-Do lists. Keeps the overwhelm down . . . until you have too many to do lists. Get your To Do List help now. Or read Why I Love ADHD.

You’ll find me at LivingWithAdoption.com. For a list of common adoption challenges, grab my free Adoption Checklist for Women: 25 Life Issues.

“Shooting Myself in the Foot describes the fear some adopted folks have over going against their parents’ wishes . . or how it took me four years to write a master’s thesis and what I did with it! More adoption stories include Losing the Letters of Willa Cather: An Adoption Story about Unworthiness and the trauma of Losing a Father

Thanks to ADHD, I’m writing two books at the same time: “Finding My Hero: An Adoption Memoir from World War Two” and “Growing Up Adopted: Love Wounded.” (One is the story of my birth-father and his family. The other, the story of the family who adopted and raised me with love . . . and made lots of mistakes. (No family is perfect!)