Growing Roots

Teachers who inspire know that teaching is like cultivating a

garden, and those who would have nothing to do with thorns
must never attempt to gather flowers.
~Author Unknown
Every morning, from the age of three to ten, I began my
school day at Roots Activity Learning Center in Washington,
D.C. by singing songs that exalted the African-American
culture and spirit of goodness. In one song, we sang the words,
“We are the ‘Roots’ of the flowers of tomorrow,” and in
another, we sang the words, “Responsibility, Duty to our
People… goes hand in hand with freedom.” During the down
time of our day, my classmates and I enjoyed when our
teachers pulled out the 12” vinyl record of Dr. Martin Luther
King’s speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop;” and we all got
choked up every time we sat to listen and learn the words to
George Benson’s rendition of Michael Masser’s and Linda
Creed’s song, “The Greatest Love Of All.” I still cry today
when I hear:
I believe that children are our future.
Teach them well, and let them lead the way.
Show them all the beauty they possess inside.
Give them a sense of pride,
To make it easier.
Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to
be.
Those various teaching methods, along with the multi-level
classroom and interdisciplinary curriculum, created a
challenging and safe environment for me to learn and feel
loved. Those methods instilled a sense of pride within me, and
they convinced me that my teachers believed in me and my
promising future, as I was taught to carry the torch of the
greatness of our people.
My educational experience taught me that positive
interactions, cultivating meaningful relationships, building
self-esteem, and instilling pride in one’s heritage was vital to
the learning process. These components of the learning
process indirectly provided my teachers the opportunity to
implement best practices that ensured that my classmates and I
excelled academically.
During my matriculation at Spelman College, I read the
research of Dr. Edwin Nichols, who researched why and how
cultural competence in the classroom looks and works by
exploring the logic systems, axiology (values) and
epistemological styles of different groups. With this article, I
learned the theories behind why my elementary school was so
successful. I then took my personal experience, and the
theories of Dr. Nichols, and applied them during my first year
of teaching in Brooklyn, New York, and they worked. I have
used these experiences and methodologies to guide and
influence my interactions, best practices and expectations for
the 1,200+ students I have had the honor to learn from, grow
with and successfully teach over the last ten years.
Six years into my teaching career, I was a hired by an
administrator of a start-up middle school, who understood the
importance of cultural competence in the classroom, and I was
thrilled. I received support for my culturally relevant,
interdisciplinary curriculum ideas and pedagogical styles; I
received support for cultural routines I established for the
school; and the educational practice of looping was even
supported. Looping, an educational practice that allows a class
of students to be taught by the same teacher two or more years
in a row, allowed me to forge vital relationships with my
students and their parents, and to thoroughly assess, expand
and address my students’ academic strengths and areas of
concern. I taught these 120 students two years in a row,
teaching both English Language Arts and Social Studies, and
we (students, parents, and myself) enjoyed those years
together tremendously. We challenged each other, supported
each other, expanded each other’s minds, and accomplished
many unfathomable goals together. We were a family, bonded
through our challenges and commitment to see them through.
After developing a three-year curriculum for this group, I
learned on the first day of their last year in this middle school
that I would not be looping up with them. There are pros and
cons to every educational model, and that year, our school
decided not to loop me with my students. Though I was
disappointed by this decision, I accepted and complied with
our school’s new approach.
Throughout the school year, I heard stories about this
group; I heard they were incorrigible, and were unwilling to
complete assignments and to cooperate. That was not the
group I knew, respected and loved so much. They were
inquisitive, in-depth, eager to learn, overachievers, funny,
sensitive and perfect representations of adolescence. Their
display of normal adolescent tendencies was something I
nurtured, embraced, laughed at, and allowed to “remind me of
how I used to be!”
At the end of this group’s graduating year, my principal
asked me to design a summer course for a small group of these
rising ninth graders, who had received failing grades in their
English and Social Studies classes that school year. These
were students that I knew were capable of academic and
behavioral success, so I was more than willing to develop a
writing seminar course, which was designed to support those
rising ninth graders for ultimate preparedness and success in
high school. My ideas and plans for the course blossomed into
a wide-ranging investigation of science and the environment
with an emphasis on African and African-American history
and the writing process.
I called the course I developed “African Knowledge and
Action for Sustainable Development.” Students were required