Dream Not of Other Worlds: Teaching in a Segregated Elementary School,1970 (Sightline Books)

When Huston Diehl began teaching a fourth-grade class in a "Negro" elementary school in rural Louisa County, Virginia, the school’s white superintendent assured her that he didn't expect her to teach "those children" anything. She soon discovered how these low expectations, widely shared by the white community, impeded her students' ability to learn. With its overcrowded classrooms, poorly trained teachers, empty bookshelves, and meager supplies, her segregated school was vastly inferior to the county's white elementary schools, and the message it sent her students was clear: "dream not of other worlds." In her often lyrical memoir, Diehl reveals how, in the intimacy of the classroom, her students reached out to her, a young white northerner, and shared their fears, anxieties, and personal beliefs. Repeatedly surprised and challenged by her students, Diehl questions her long-standing middle-class assumptions and confronts her own prejudices. In doing so, she eloquently reflects on what the students taught her about the hurt of bigotry and the humiliation of poverty as well as dignity, courage, and resiliency. Set in the waning days of the Jim Crow South, Dream Not of Other Worlds chronicles an important moment in American history. Diehl examines the history of black education in the South and narrates the dramatic struggle to integrate Virginia's public schools. Meeting with some of her former students and colleagues and visiting the school where she once taught, she considers what has--and has not--changed after more than thirty years of integrated schooling. This provocative book raises many issues that are of urgent concern today: the continuing social consequences of segregated schools, the role of public education in American society, and the challenges of educating minority and poor children. Recounts The Author's First Job Teaching Fourth-graders In A Segregated Black School In Rural Virginia During The Early 1970s. As The Students' First White Teacher, Diehl Shares How The Children Connected With Her And Describes Their Courage And Resiliency In The Face Of Poverty And Bigotry. A Part Of Me -- Concerning This Little Frightened Child -- Reach Up Your Hand, Dark Boy, And Take A Star -- Larger Than Truth Can Be -- Where Is The Jim Crow Section On This Merry-go-round? -- The Too-rough Fingers Of The World -- It Was A Long Time Ago. Huston Diehl. Includes Bibliographical References. Contents......Page 10 Foreword......Page 12 A Part of Me......Page 18 Concerning This Little Frightened Child......Page 54 Reach Up Your Hand, Dark Boy, and Take a Star......Page 79 Larger Than Truth Can Be......Page 107 Where Is the Jim Crow Section on This Merry-Go-Round?......Page 133 The Too-Rough Fingers of the World......Page 158 It Was a Long Time Ago......Page 192 Afterword......Page 232 Acknowledgments......Page 256 Set in the waning days of the Jim Crow South, this title chronicles an important moment in American history. It examines the history of black education in the South and narrates the dramatic struggle to integrate Virginia's public schools.