Today, I am going to take a minute to honor my first teacher on her birthday. My mother, Paulette Kristine Ford.
My mother was born on November 20, 1948. She and my dad married in 1967 and my oldest sister soon followed. My mother, like me, had a non traditional path to becoming a teacher in the Boston Public School System.
She started working at Boston High School as a paraprofessional where my Grandmother, Jeanette Bowen was an English teacher. So you can see, teaching is in my DNA. We won’t even talk about my paternal grandmother who was also a teacher in Macon, Georgia before she earned her degree and became an engineer at Raytheon.
Anyway, my mother went back to school to earn her masters in Childhood Education and minor in child pyshcology. My mother taught language arts and computer science. At the same time she was attending school, she was also spearheading the Demolition Disposition Program for Camfield Estates. Camfield Estates was a forclosed housing project in the south end. The master plan for boston was “Urban Renewal” or otherwise known as gentrification. She worked with HUD and various entities to have the site demolished and then purchased by the residents. You can read more about the program and her work here. As a side note, Randall Pinkett went on to win The Apprentice….
During the project, my mother was insistant on three things:
- Resident Ownership
- A Community Space
- A Computer Lab with a music studio
And so, on this day. I find myself in her office, my office, reflecting on the things that she taught me. Why she made me take Latin. Why she made us read different history books. Why she insisted on the computer lab and why stable housing was a cause she championed. I now know why she read so much and why she was such a prolific writer. I know why she chose to teach Language Arts in addition to Computer Science.
I write this today, not as a reflection on teaching but to honor my best teacher. I love you Mummy.
Scarlet's Unconventional Teaching Convention 