E for Education

E for Education

Okay—hold onto your reading glasses and get a drink of choice.  I have a LOT to say about “education.”  First, the definition.  Again, according to Webster’s New World College Dictionary (a reliable source as usual), “education” is defined as:Noun 1. the process of training and developing the knowledge, skills, mind character…by formal schooling; teaching; training  2. knowledge, ability, etc. thus developed.

I feel it would be safe to say that everyone reading this blog has received education as it is defined since you are, indeed, reading this blog.  Of course, some may be self taught and never had “formal education,” but if so, please let me know so I can correct my thinking in this matter.

We are educated formally in school to be able to read, do sums and figure numbers, write coherently (we hope), learn about geography, government of our nation and others’ nations, history that is hopefully all inclusive, the arts, etc.  Our teachers work with us from our childhood through young adulthood and beyond to develop our knowledge and skills.  And, as anyone knows who has had children, taught children, been around children—some kids learn, some don’t, and thus we have another type of education that abounds outside a formal classroom.

I would like to refer here to an educational session I had with Annis. (She gave me permission to write about it.)  I had asked her for help with learning how to do online submissions.  She agreed to help me and we met for my tutorial with her using one computer and I having one she was not used to operating.  Neither of us were too frustrated as we just kept plugging away between the two laptops, she giving valuable information I would need to submit my material, explaining, and me asking question after question.  I was afraid she would throw up her hands at some point, smile, and politely as possible exit my ignorance.  But she did not, we conquered the differences between laptops, and she gave me even more pointers.  Then, as often happens when a bond in overcoming a mutual obstacle occurs, we relaxed a little and talked.  Somehow, we started talking about education—hence, this blog.

In sharing, we agreed that as valuable as a formal education is, as well as advantageous in so many ways, it was often life experiences that gave us our most long lasting and enduring educations.  She and I, for instance, both knew what discrimination and racism meant.  We were neither naive nor uninformed in the subject.  But she came from one angle and I from another.  I am white.  She is not.  I had told her how I appreciated a piece she wrote about facing racism and how it made an impression on me.  Then I related my facing discrimination and racism as a child in southeast Texas.  

I was six or seven years old.  My father had been raised there, my mother was a native Californian, and they had met in California but moved to be close to his family of birth.  We were poor—though I didn’t fully know that at the time—and my father had taken me into town from our farm to buy a new pair of shoes at J.C. Penny’s.  I couldn’t remember ever having a brand new pair of shoes and was thrilled.  And being so excited, I desperately had to pee when we got out of the parked car to go to the store.  At that time, there were no strip malls, it was 1955, but they did have public restrooms between storefronts.  Since my father was not one to hold my hand when we went anywhere together, I yelled, “Gotta go!  Be right back!” and headed toward the signature sign of the woman in the skirt on the door close to our parking place.  Formal education did me no good.

On the door, along with the sign for “Women” was written in bold letters “COLORED ONLY.”  At my tender age, and also my inability to hold my water, I ran to the door, and burst into the ladies restroom.  I saw a stall door swinging  open and headed straight towards it.  A large soft hand stopped me as it firmly landed on my shoulder.  “Y’all can’t use this bathroom, chile,” I heard.  I looked up into the kindest eyes I had seen in a long while.  “But ma’am, I GOTTA GO!” I whined, dancing and holding my crotch.  “Not here, honey.  You go to the white bathroom.  Hurry.  You go there!”  My response was, “I’m gonna pee my pants!  Please!”  

I guess the woman believed me, but I could see she was afraid.  Still, my bladder was calling the shots so without even closing the stall door, I plopped my little self on the toilet and peed and peed.  With relief I finished up, but I could hear whispering.  When I finished, I looked around at about five or six women, all looking scared.  The same kind woman who had first stopped me spoke and said, “Honey, y’all git yourself outta here now.  We all in trouble if you don’t.  Scoot on outta  here honey.”  I sincerely asked her, “Why are we all in trouble?  I just went pee and I didn’t make no mess or…”  And then another woman said softly, “Chile, this heres the black bathroom.  You is white and we is all in trouble.  Please get outta here, honey!”  I remember feeling totally confused.  “But it was me come in here!  Not any of you doing anything but letting me pee!  And thank you cause I thought I was gonna die and my daddy would have killed…” and then it hit me like a two by four between my eyes.  Daddy.  Black folks bathroom.  Me.  White.  And I cried.

I turned to the women, crying, and said, “I’m so sorry.  I didn’t mean to get nobody in trouble!  Honest truth!  I just had to pee!  Please don’t hate me!  I didn’t read the sign!  What can I do?  Oh god I’m sorry!  I don’t want nobody to get in trouble!  It’s my fault!  I’m SORRY!”  The tears kept flowing and I began to get scared of what might happen because of me.  One of the women that looked like she was as old as my grandma leaned down and wiped my face with a handkerchief and whispered, “Shhhhhh.  It’s all right honey, it’s all right.  You don’t be crying over us.  We grown women.  You just a little girl what had to go.  We be all right.  So you just walk out like it ain’t nothin and go on.  Can you do that?”  I mumbled I would try.  The woman who had tried to stop me as I charged in, patted my back to reassure me and I turned and hugged her with all my strength and said again, “I’m so sorry Ma’am!”  She didn’t push me away, but stroked my hair and said, “Come on, baby,” and walked me to the door.  

Outside, my father was pacing and when he saw me coming out the door, he grabbed my arm, told me how I had shamed him, and if I ever pulled a stunt like that again I wouldn’t be able to sit for a month.  I told him I was sorry and asked if I could get a drink of water at the fountain.  He let go of my arm and curtly nodded.  But I looked before I approached the fountain so I drank out of the one that said “WHITES ONLY.”  

So far as I know, no one accosted the kind women in the restroom I invaded.  And I kept thanking God for that.  I got an education that day.  An intensive and very painful education.  As I related the incident to Annis to show how education covers many venues, I felt a knot come up in my stomach with remembering the incident.  She was not upset and agreed, life teaches one many, many things you don’t learn in a classroom.  And I felt like I had received yet another learning experience.  How wonderful it was to talk to someone who got it because there was the freedom to learn from each other.

Education, in my truth, is what you have learned in school.  And “school” can be k-12, college, working as an apprentice under a master, feeding the homeless, caring for an elderly person, sitting under a tree during a rainstorm, rescuing a baby animal or an abused and abandoned one, sharing with other souls.  Education cannot be forced.  It is not like taking an empty cup and forcing something into it.  Rather, it is the ability to keep taking what was put into the cup, welcoming it, sharing it, and replenishing the cup, over and over.  An open mind and heart can be educated over and over, repeatedly.  

What do I remember most from my “education” in the COLORED ONLY restroom?  Kind women who were concerned for me.  Soft hands, quiet voices that comforted me and yet were firm in telling me what I needed to do.  They did not condemn, judge, accuse.  They helped a kid who had not learned to hate or be racist yet, but they didn’t know that.  I could have been hateful and racist.  And yet, they showed kindness.  Did I see color that day.  Yes.  And I hated that.  Why?  Because I had seen their hearts and they had seen mine and color had nothing, absolutely NOTHING to do with the hearts involved.  My father saw only the color.  I pity him to this day.  He missed out on so many wonderful people.

I have learned many things, been educated in many ways.  Some are beautiful enlightenments, some are horrid and devastating experiences survived.  Now, I know that all these things made me a better teacher as I chose to teach students in a classroom.  I saw my “students” as willing and open minds, desiring to learn.  And I wanted to share what I had learned with them, be open to them, listen to them, give answers where I could and work to find the answers I did not have with them.  They learned—I learned from them.  Because of our mutual education of each other, because of being open with each other, I am richer, I am more open, I have more love and empathy for everything because I and they were  willing to be taught—to be educated.  With education—in so many classrooms of life—I can choose this for myself.  We all have that choice.