WOODHICKS, BLACK SATIN AND OLD LACE, AND WHIPPERWILLS

As a teacher, I am no stranger to assessment and analysis. Much of my time is spent in evaluation, followed by developing pedagogical strategies to improve my teaching and learner outcomes in my classroom. During the last decade of teaching, I have often thought about how I teach. During the last month, I’ve asked myself a different question: Why do I teach?

I’ve thought about this question daily since I realized that the why I teach is directly connected to my sense of identity. When I returned to West Virginia in 1969 as a starry-eyed, idealistic first-year teacher, I found myself in a rural classroom filled with adolescents who longed to be elsewhere. Many of the girls were waiting for a marriage proposal, and the boys for their sixteenth birthday, so they could get their “driver’s” and join their fathers in the mines. Nothing in my training had prepared me for this school environment. I began to question my decision to become a teacher and even submitted my resignation. Others convinced me to try another school. Fortunately, I took their advice. Supported by the community, this school was filled with many students who wanted a good education. Teaching in Valley High School set the course for my career.

I became passionate about the chance to make a difference. Passion is a consuming fire, however, and it will either burn itself out or be fed from another source.

My passion for teaching was fed by my love of the people in West Virginia, those who are so often incorrectly portrayed by the media and so misunderstood by Americans living elsewhere. Rather than a people driven by a strong sense of place, whose roots run deep beneath the surface of family land, we are often perceived as illiterate miners and farmers. We sometimes believe this stereotypical labeling. We answer to hillbillies or “hicks” --- originally a self-designated occupational term for the men who worked in the woods and called themselves woodhicks. Because I want students to appreciate their heritage, to be proud of the past, and to understand the people responsible for our regional history, I teach.

My parents moved away from West Virginia for a number of reasons, most of which I can only guess. I suspect they wanted me to have a better public education than I would have received in rural Preston County. As a third grader, I found myself in a small Maryland town and classroom of Miss Workman, a spinster who dressed in dark satins that rustled when she walked. The severity of her dress was softened by the lace at her throat, and the smiles she bestowed on “her” children. Her cheeks were rouged an unnatural red and her black hair was betrayed by tell-tale gray roots. We loved her. She read to us daily and instilled in us an appreciation for the beauty of language. Fridays were spelling quiz days. One particular quiz involved those spelling demons of double ss and double zz. I missed the word “scissors.” When Miss Workman returned our quizs, I remember laying my head down on the desk and crying. She came back to my seat and bent low to whisper, “What is wrong?” I told her I knew how to spell “scissors” but had gotten confused. She hugged me and then asked a strange question for a teacher. She said, “If I change your grade, do you promise to always spell ‘scissors’ correctly?” I sobbed that I would. She did change the grade, and I have never misspelled the word in the last fifty years. Because that beloved teacher taught me that learning goes beyond standard classroom practices, I teach.

These days I enjoy spending time in the rocker on our front deck. When I can, I start and end my summer days there. The rocker is a heavy wooden chair, built for a large man, so even I sometimes feel almost child-like in it. On a particular evening not long ago, I look up from my perch to see the first star of evening. Behind me, the screen alone separates me from the inside of the house, where the chiming of the clock and the familiar rhythmic noise of the dishwasher support the daily routine.

A sense of recollection begins to settle on me like the early evening dew. I catch myself listening as I gaze out over the yards, fields, and fences that mark the land I call home. The song birds have stilled, but the solitary night sounds are slow to come. First, I hear the call of a turkey, probably seeking out a tree limb on which to roost. Then the old barn owl who has survived another year heralds the night with his familiar “who/who-who/who-whooooo.” A dog howls on a distant hill. And then it comes—the sound that I’ve been listening, unaware, for—a sound that has grown rare. It is a plaintive call: “whip per will!” “whip per will!” That sound brings a flood of images to mind. The whipperwill’s call takes me back to childhood, to a time when life was safe and snug as a warm blanket.

I close my eyes and rest my head on the rocker. Once again, I’m on Grandmother’s porch. The rocking chairs and the swings are occupied by adults, and so I sit on the top step with my back against the post. Night is falling around me, and the night sounds are both close and far away. At the bottom of the porch steps and beyond, the fire flies dance on air like tiny fairies carrying torches. Once I will catch one and make a ring of its light---but only once, for I am sickened by the knowledge that my play has cost the simple creature its life.

The fire flies dart and flit, but I am the only one who notices. The adults are too busy with their talk. Work on the farm is hard, and the summer days are long. The adults, all men---three brothers---share the house. The matriarch, who has lost her independence due to age and dementia, now lives in town to be close to medical care. Two of the brothers are bachelors, but the third and the youngest, is married to the woman working in the kitchen at the back of the house. Through the screen door, I can hear the sounds of a poker jabbing at the fire and the rush of cold water flowing into the big kettle in the cement sink. When the dishes are washed and dried, she will add wood and coal to the big cook stove, for the coal will hold the fire through the night. Next I hear the soft swish-swish of the broom on the hard floor. My time is almost up, and so I grab the night with my senses. The tree frogs have taken up the symphony of night sounds. I can count six stars now, with the promise of more to show themselves, if I am patient and given more time.

My oldest uncle begins to speak of a time when he was frightened as a boy. My papa counters with: “Once I was walking back from Mother Sapp’s. For some reason, I stopped dead in the middle of the path. It was then I heard it. A scream in the tree overhead. It sounded like a woman, and I knew it was a wild cat. I ran like the wind, and made it home safely. I never looked back.” As he talked, my heart beat rapidly. I was sure a wild cat lurked nearby, waiting to pounce on me. Maybe what I had thought was a firefly was really a wild cat, blinking before he jumped on the porch.

The shadows are closing in, and I find no comfort in the disembodied voices coming from the porch. I raise my knees close to my chest and wrap my arms tightly around my legs. And then, the screen door squeaks and a familiar voice calls, “Come on. It’s time for bed.” Mama is standing in the doorway with the oil lamp in her hand. “But Mama…,” I begin. She expects this reply and responds with, “I’ve already given you ten extra minutes. Come quickly now.” I follow her to the bedroom at the top of the stairs. The lamp casts strange shadows on the walls and the steps, but I am not afraid. We stop by the bathroom where I wash my face, hands and feet quickly in cold water. I follow Mama to the little bed where she had laid out my pajamas, and I shiver as I slide onto the cool sheet.

Tonight I do not ask for a story, for my head has been filled with the porch talk. Mama kisses me, tucks me in and closes the door. I hear her descend the steps, knowing she, too, will prepare for bed and soon be asleep.

I listen to the night sounds. While I remember the wild cat, I am not afraid. I listen to the frogs and the low of a cow. A night bird sends forth a call. Below me, I can hear the voices of the men on the porch, who will be the last to find rest in their beds. Their need to share stories from the past delays the end of their day. I can not understand their words, but through the open window, their talk becomes my lullaby, and I am soon asleep. Perhaps as I sleep, a lone whipperwill will call to his mate.

From my rocking chair at a different house more than fifty years later, I remember. My memories have shaped who I am. My passion for learning and for sharing my love of language with my students has not burned out. It is fed by the joys of living in a place that needs storytellers. And so, I teach.

Jo Ann Dadisman

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