ERIC ED367992: Eat, Drink and Be Merry for Tomorrow You Teach.

5 Pages·1993·0.15 MB·English

by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
CS 214 264
ED 367 992
Royster, Jacqueline Jones
AUTHOR
Eat, Drink and Be Merry for Tomorrow You Teach.
TITLE
PUB DATE
93
NOTE
5p.
PUB TYPE Journal Articles (080)
Bread Loaf News; v6 n2 p29-31 Fall-Win 1993
JOURNAL CIT
EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.
Black Literature; Blacks; Curriculum Development;
DESCRIPTORS
*English Instruction; *Ethnic Groups; Females; Higher
Education; Regional Attitudes; *United States
Literature; Womens Studies
African Americans; *English Teachers; United States
IDENTIFIERS
(South); Walker (Alice)
ABSTRACT
Several summers of engaging in dialogue and debate
have led one scholar to examine closely the ways and means of English
Studies in light of contemporary conditions and
restraints--particularly as pertains to American literature. As a
woman of African American descent, she appreciates Black Southern
culture. As their rhetorical and literary history illustrates,
African American women writers and readers seem to perceive a certain
inevitability about their stations in life. Writers such as Alice
Walker and Anna Julia Cooper present metaphorical strategies for
countering such inevitability. There seems to exist among African
American women a deeply encoded message that encourages them to seize
every opportunity to count. Choices in curricula, content, pedagogy,
and assessment present such opportunities. Every day English teachers
structure activities designed to enable them and their students to
develop their powers of imagination to the extent that they can
envision a world in which people have the courage and compassion to
imagine themselves in better worlds and the commitment to work
relentlessly to make it so. English teachers must act with the
courage of their well-deliberated convictions and with compassion
that emphasizes an individual's interconnectedness with others.
Teachers must teach with a desire to talk and listen well, with an
understanding that survival is a cooperative venture, and that
teaching and learning are a human enterprise. (SAM)
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Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made
from the original document.
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Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you teach
By Jacqueline Jones Royster
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2
BEST CM MIME
Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you teach
By Jacqueline Jones Royscer
My experience with African American
Drew
remember hearing people say, "I woke up
Ms. Royster delivered the Elizabeth
women writers tells me that this state-
this morning in my right mind." Over
Lecture for the summer of 1993 at Bread
ment is not a casual remark intended to
the years, I've come to appreciate the
LoafNennont, The Burgess Meredith Little
be just an interesting and somewhat
Theatre. The main points of her lecture
meaning of this statement much more
mystical turn of phrase. I understand that
deeply than I ever imagined as a child,
folkrw.
Word, Alice Walker woke
in Living
by the
understanding now that it's really rather
up in her right mind, filled her pages
difficult sometimes CO wake up in your
For the last two summers here at Bread
with passion, thoughtfulness, and
right mind. For the last ten years or so,
Loaf in the company of others who have
urgency and that this statement is a
been, not only willing, but particularly
I've counted myself lucky in this regard.
message from a "two-headed woman"
My research has centered on the public
able to engage in intense dialogue and
who lives by the word and walks on.
discourse of African American women,
debate, I have taken the rather free-
and I can clearly attribute many of my
wheeling opportunity that this place
Sometimes, there seems to exist
offers to shake out my thoughts and feelings of right-mindedness to the
among African American women,
escalating sense of identity that I have
beliefs as we have examined rather
perhaps in our bone ma row, a deeply
found with these writers. They speak to
closely the ways and means of English
encoded message that encourages us to
Studies in light of contemporary
my head. They speak to my heart. They
try as we are able to make every opportu-
speak to my soul. They are "dark spinners
conditions and constraints. Of specific
nity count, and we tend to do so with
of word magic," and I rejoice in my
concern has been the reading, teaching,
knowing of them as I continue to be
passion.
and valuing of literature, and especially
How pleased I am that I have avail-
amazed that others do not.
what is becoming increasingly problem-
able to me these women's words, the
aticAmerican literature. Our dialogues
As evidenced by much in African
ways in which they articulate their lives
American women's rhetorical and
have questioned in provocative ways the
and visions, the ways in which they
literary history, my foremothers and
history, context, and boundaries of what
strum both the joy and pain of my soul,
we do and don't do, and our debates have
contemporary sisters seem to have
the ways in which they sing my life in
mirrored the comparably intense debates perceived, as I believe that I do, a certain
their songs. They help me to feel that I
inevitability about our stations in life,
that are generally acting themselves out
have the capacity to wake up in my right
in academic environments across the
whether we see those stations as
mind and to help other people to try to
country and around the world.
constructed, or assumed, or assigned, or a
do that as well.
little bit of all of this and more. Because,
Carrying on these conversations here
In my most optimistic of moods, I say
at Bread Loaf is not just a popular thing most often, the positions from which we
that the reading, teaching, and valuing of
to do, but a critically important thing to
think and speak tend to be the way that
literature constitute a core of what has
do. I believe that, in particular, those of
they are, i.e., at hest non-supportive, and
come to be for me ongoing challenges,
us who teach, at whatever level, owe this
because within these contexts we tend to
interests, and beliefs that seem to surface
intense thought and talk to our students
be the way that we arc, i.e., defiant and
and resurface in all sorts of ways as I
back home whose learning we are
outrageous, there seems to prevail in our
move or find myself confronted in this
public lives at least the notion that each
shaping and whose understanding we are
academic arena as teacher, scholar, and
helping to direct. I consider this
moment at the podium is worth treating
active member of the profession of
collective responsibility of ours to be one
as the only moment.
English studies.
to which we must bring the fullness of
At other, less optimistic, times I feel
our personal and professional integrity...
Often the sense of urgency for African
besieged when people automatically
I am a woman of African descent who American women writers is such that we
assume, not only that I have a substan-
joyfully embraces Black Southern culture
can perceive no opportunity to be heard
tive opinion about all dimensions of a
as expendable. So, when Alice Walker,
because 1 find such richness there. I
terribly complex dilemmawhich I
consider myself to be a rather metaphori-
for example, makes a seemingly simple
usually do, but also that I have answers
cal person who simply delights in the
the Word,
statement in Living by
I sense
that might actually translate into a magic
notion that things like symbols and
an urgency. In this collection of essays,
set of tried and true solutions that will
metaphors exist in the world. I say
she discusses her relationships with both
most certainly work for themwhich I
occasionally that I think in pictures, but
human and non-human beings. At the
know that nobody that I know really
whether I really do or not, I do appreci-
end of the collection, she says:
ate a good image, and the SouthBlack does. When I'm not feeling besieged, I
The Universe responds. What you
and otherwiseis filled with sayings that
sometimes feel haunted by thoughts that
ask of it, it gives... Teach yourself
just seem to linger and linger in one form
trigger for me good images. Let me begin
peace. Pass it on (192-93).
by sharing one. When I was growing
I
3
29
FALUV/INTER 1993
or another in my heart and in my
A Vine /tam the South by a Black Woman
and souls is by default also a mechanism
consciousness, and that is when I come
of the South, Cooper says:
by which hearts, minds, and souls can be
Our money, our schools, our
up with titles like Eat, Drink, and Be
touched, expanded, and encouraged to
governments, our free institutions,
break through the boundaries of their
Merry, for Tomorrow You Teach.
In keeping with yet another African
our systems of religion and forms of
own personal histories and even their
American tradition, I could consider
creeds are all first and last to be
known and unknown potential.. 1 was
these words "conjure words" and ask that judged by this standard: what sort of
not alerted even to the notion that
you open yourselves to the possibilities of
men and women do they grow? .
teaching and learning are in direct
I
the images that the conjuring spirits
shall not try to test your logic, but
response to the world in which we live
weigh your resultsand that test is
might evoke.
and in direct service of the needs that
Let's consider Bread Loaf to be a
the measure of the stature of the
our society has determined that schools,
training ground in pretty much the same
fullness of man (282-283).
colleges, and universities as socio-cultural
way that the nation state of Sparta had
institutions will meet. Nor, heaven
On several occasions the echoes and
for its warriors a training ground.
forbid, was I ever encouraged to even
reverberations of this quote have pushed
When we read, analyze, assess, teach, and
guess that there might ever be the notion
me to consider, much more directly than
value literature, what are we really trying
that a term like "American literature"
my training in English Studies has
to do? Not just what is the focus of our
in essence a deeply rooted socio-cultural
encouraged, the question of what sort of
efforts (as in which texts) or even the
construction that, in effect, we have
human beings I would ideally want to see
nature of the work, but what are the
been re-inventing in each generation
our choices of curricula, pedagogy,
terms of the engagement? What are the
since we started thinking about such a
content, and assessment to produce.
principles by which we live as a nation,
thing.
My training did not encourage me to
as a people, as human beings in the
Cooper's words, though, suggest to me
include such questions in my definition
presence of other human beings that
that the center of the academic enter-
of quality or value or excellence in the
would make, or perhaps should make, it
prise, with the reading, teaching, and
teaching, learning, and valuing of
reasonable to select, arrange, and
valuing of texts as one dimension of it, is
literature. The model that I experienced
preserve the pieces that we do in the
not texts at all or even institutional
fits more comfortably into a mode that
ways that we do?
mandates. The center of the enterprise is
privileges subject matter, not people. My
people, and the ways in which we
training encouraged me to consider the
Somehow we seem to be operating at
nurture and sustain them as they arc
center of the enterprise to be the
step two or three or four in the scheme of
enabled to gain access to information, to
literature, and not just any literature, but
things without having taken into
process and use that information vari-
literature that has stood some ill-defined
account the maze of steps that might
ously, and to articulate, interpret, and
test of time. My job was to find creative
bring us to a particular point in terms of
reinterpret and render for themselves
ways to convince all kinds of students
how classrooms and curricula get made
visions, lives, history, and culture. The
from all kinds of backgrounds that
and how learning becomes engaged. My
ongoing task is trying to figure out the
literature and the liberal arts in general
sense has always been that our attention
uses to be made of rt .ources, tools, and
are essentially to be loved, appreciated,
in all of this ruckus over what we will
strategies in the interest of human beings
embraced pretty much for their own sake,
read, analyze, and value is really in the
who should be able to develop to the
as a sign of culture and achievement, and
wrong place. It seems to me that we're
fullest of their possibilities.
used perhaps to soothe a savage beast,
being distracted by symptoms of our
For me, then, the very firstperhaps
but not necessarily for such mundane
dilemma and not paying enough atten-
the only, and certainly the most
things as the possibility that teaching
tion to the sources of it. My intuition
criticalterm of engagement in the
and learning are about people or that the
tells me that there should be something
reading, teaching, and valuing of
teaching and learning of literature has
happening and something acknowledged
literature is that human beings, not
residual effects in terms of the sort of
before these concerns.
books, are at the center of the enterprise.
people that are left in the wake of
What this means to me is that everything
whatever the formal teaching and
Continuing in this intuitive mode,
learning have been. keys to this principle, so that the first act
the voice that I hear so persistently in my
of teaching and learning for me is to
In my formal education, I was not
head is Anna Julia Cooper's voice. In
primed to take into account the impact
acknowledge who the human beings are
1892 in a collection of essays entitled
(students and teachers) who are engaged
of my choices, only the glory of them. I
in this process and to offer tickets of
was not sensitized to the idea that
admission into my classroom to as many
literature, as a product of hearts, minds,
4
30
BREAD LOAF NEWS
understanding that survival is a
of these individual distinctions as I can.
Ms. Royster is the Director of the
cooperative venture, and that teaching
as I make and remake my courses.
UniversityWriting Center and Associate
and learning are a human enterprise.
Our work is high risk. We structure
Professsor of English at Ohio State
So, again, remember this metaphor
activities that take us and our students
University and Program Chair of the 4 C's.
cat of the food of Bread Loaf, drink from
through all kinds of zones that have
Two of her recent books include
the nectar of Vermont, rejoice in the
within them danger, the danger of
Doublestitch: Black Women Write about
company of your conspirators, and ready
growth, the danger of intellectual
Mothers and Daughters (editorial team)
yourselves, for tomorrow you teach, and
development, the danger of learning, the
and Writer's Choice, a language arts
if we are lucky our students will learn and
danger of seeing that human beings in all
textbook.
of their variety are after all quite human.
so will we all.
A basic challenge is to find ways to
encourage people to develop their powers
of imagination and then to use them so
that they are able to operate as learners
with the expectation of surviving the
inevitable chaos of it all and still
managing to find their own rewards. My
dream is to see a world in which people
have the courage and compassion to
imagine themselves in better worlds and
the commitment to work relentlessly to
make it so.
I believe that we will always find that
teaching in our world demands conscious
thought and that there will be an
everpresent need to think more flexibly
about what we want a course or a
curriculum to do and why we want it to
do that, based on which and whose
assessment of needs, in response to what
demands; in keeping with what visions,
values, attitudes, and on what intellec-
tual authoritytoward what ends,
outcomes, expectations. These questions
about vision, values, attitudes, and
expectations inform how and why we
shape and direct our teaching and
constitute the genesis of intellectual
power, authority, and also responsibility.
On our shoulders is the responsibility
of deciding well, not just in good faith,
but in good conscience with good
information and considerable thought.
We must think beyond the singularity of
the teaching of literature, or developing
literacy, or making curricula. We must
act with the courage of our well-deliber-
ated convictions, with compassion that
underscores a recognition of our
5
interconnectedness with others, with a
desire to talk and to listen well, with an
FALL/WINTER 1993
31