Even though it was 25 years ago, it seems as if it were yesterday. I had been removed from my seventh grade literature class again for “needing continual redirection.” That is a very gentle way of saying that I was talking, playing around, and purposefully disrupting class. While I was standing outside the classroom, I saw Mrs. Norris walking down the hall toward me. Now, most teachers would just walk by without saying a word; some teachers might give a disapproving look or headshake as they hurried past me to more important things. Not Mrs. Norris. She was going to conduct a mini-inquiry, and then there would be a strongly worded censure of my behavior. I can still hear that sophisticated Southern voice telling me, “You have a responsibility to help other people not just yourself.”
Mrs. Norris was my seventh grade science teacher, but those science lessons are not what I still carry with me a quarter of a century later. Mrs. Norris invested in making me a better person. It was not just about academics with her; it was about my humanity. I applaud all teachers who enter a classroom with a heart of gold and good intentions, but without understanding, those attributes are not enough to have any enduring transformative effects on a student. Mrs. Norris possessed a passionate understanding that changed lives.
Mrs. Barbara Norris is part of a generation of African American educators who experienced the destructive forces of Jim Crow firsthand. That generation of teachers entered the classroom knowing what would happen to an unprepared and ill-equipped African American child. Even though the “No Coloreds Allowed” and “Whites Only” signs had been gone for nearly 17 years by the time Mrs. Norris taught me, she knew that the mentality and spirit that nailed those signs to walls and doors were still alive. And that was evident in the passion with which she taught her students.
Proficiency in reading, writing andarithmetic is not enough. Our schools need teachers who understand that African American students must be prepared and equipped to navigate a society that can be hostile. It was that understanding that would not allow Mrs. Norris to walk by me in that hallway without letting me know my responsibility to improving my society for future generations as she and others had done for me. –samuel adams
