Freda Andrews - on early experiences teaching and cultural differences (clip)

Freda Andrews (FA): It wasn’t Durham Public Schools, it was Durham City Schools. I had my first teaching job at Fayetteville Street School in Durham. The ironic thing is, about that, as a Black teacher, I had to learn the culture of my own people because of the difference. When I was in Person County all they sang was, “She’ll be Coming around the Mountain.” But when I came to Durham, the kids were singing, “Thriller.” I said, “How am I going to adjust?” I was too [white] to be Black. That was my scary moment. I couldn’t control… I couldn’t manage my classroom.

So, I went home telling my daughter my saga about “I don’t know how to relate to these children.” Because they were behavior-wise like night and day. Even the music, everything about them was different. I asked her what should I do? She said, “Well Mom, you got to realize what your setting is. You gotta go in there and let them know who the teacher is, first of all.” They used to have a saying for teachers, “You can’t smile until the end of the year.” Things were really difficult for me. But then I kept saying “I don’t know whether I’m too…I can’t relate to them. I can’t get their attention. I can’t get them to do what I want them to do.”

So, she said, “We always believe in prayer.” That’s a strong glue to our family. So, after I prayed about how to handle the situation, I was determined that I was going to go back in there and this was going to be our class. Not their class, not my class but together we were going to work together in this situation. Once I did that, once I started talking about more of the things they enjoyed doing, I could understand the background better. My family was, basically, we grew up thinking we were kinda, I guess you say, middle class and up, so it was hard to identify with the inner-city children because I was never from the inner city. As an educator, oh my goodness, I am so far out of the range of these babies, but I made it because they eventually knew that I cared. That was the difference. Because once they realized and when I introduced my poems to them, they had no choice but to get [in line]. That’s how I worked that out.