A: Gosh, where to begin? I love stories, I love hearing people talk about their own lives — particularly those who have lives different from mine — and I love telling stories from my own life. Watching TED talks online has always attracted me for that reason, so I couldn't pass it up when it came to Dayton. I think, also, we don't tell enough stories to each other in Dayton across cultures, across gender, across all kinds of lines. The more we do that in a personal way, the better and stronger the community gets. Working at Sinclair, I have this really beautiful opportunity to sit with students of different ages, different races, different economic backgrounds who all come together in the classroom in the hub of Dayton and share their stories. There's real value in it.
Q: What’s your story?
A: My story is that I'm a teacher, a teacher, a teacher. I highly identify with my job, and also how I conduct myself outside of my job. And I've always been interested in being black, being African-American and what that means, and my relationship with Africa. As a teacher, I naturally want to be able to read, learn and reach out to answer questions. In the summer of 2012, I went to Durban, South Africa, with Wright State University's Wright Lead Project, a youth leadership institute, to teach poetry to teenagers there. But I also went with this overarching question of who I am in relation to my motherland, Africa. That was important to me.
Q: Amplify a bit on your point about being black and thinking about Africa.
A: Well, I'd tell an anecdote from our trip. Before we went, my husband had this experience where we were on the way to the D.C. airport and stopped off the highway, and at this rest stop looked through one of those long-range view finders, where we could see the Mason-Dixon line. And I looked at it and thought, wow, there's this line out there that meant so much to so many people for so long, and it's left all this residue. It would have meant a lot to me at one point in time, as an African-American — but it's an imaginary line, not real. We created it and put it there. It made me think about my heritage and who I am as a black person, as an American. I thought I might get some answers.
Q: Did you?
A: Not the ones I anticipated. The most important thing I think I learned is how much I didn't understand the diversity and enormity of Africa. I've read a lot about it, but I didn't fully understand until I went to Durban; if the continent is a hand, what I experienced is the tip of the fingernail.
Q: What surprised you most?
A: That's funny. There's a product for African-Americans who keep their hair in a natural state called Shea Butter, and you'll find all kinds of people who expound on the glories of the stuff. Well, it's an African product, and when I got there I went looking everywhere for it and couldn't find any. I thought, what's up with that? Turns out, it's a West African product, and I'm in South Africa — it just hit me how I had thought, I'm in this place where people look like me, and I had this idea of how the place would be. But it finally sinks in with me how vast the continent is. And I thought, who am I, then, if I don't understand Africa? I didn't have an answer for that, but I'm committed to learning more, and figuring out my place.
Q: Do you think that’s something people ever really figure out, their place?
A: I think I know some people who feel like they have. But I don't know if their answer is also my answer.
Q: What was the situation there?
A: Dr. Jennifer Subban is from South Africa and takes WSU students to run the program. It's a youth leadership institute and last year had about 100 teens. My class was poetry, one was music and visual arts that my husband taught — G. Scott Jones, he teaches music at Wogaman Middle School in Dayton — and there were classes on entrepreneurship, community development. The students do a community project, too. It's a jam-packed three weeks. My students wrote poetry that we published later in Sinclair's literary magazine. Our community project was at a daycare for refugee children. It was a great experience.
Part of it all was getting to see the students, who came from two high schools of different racial heritage, interact across cultures and make friendships — something they would not have been able to do under apartheid. On the last day we had a ceremony where the students talked about how they had come together, and what it means for their country. It was really touching.
Q: How do you turn this into a TEDx talk?
A: Well, I do talk about the lessons I learned from my hair. But there's this South African word ubuntu, which translates to "I am because you are" — my existence is interwoven into yours. I am not singular, or independent of those around me. I knew the word, but I just didn't get it until I was there, experiencing the depth of the community there. It was a very modern place where I was teaching, not at all underdeveloped. But the teens I was dealing with taught me just how much I need other people and how valuable I am to them, whether I want to be or not. It was hard to come home, actually.
Q: How does this relate back to your teaching here?
A: The ubuntu piece does. It absolutely reinvigorated my teaching, especially this year, as I've had a year to reflect on the experience. I taught my students the word ubuntu, what it means, and several of the things we do in class relates to culture and how we don't really think about it. I have students who don't really understand that they are part of a culture — so it relates in that way, I've put the idea of heritage and culture on the table for all of us to think about. Our American heritage, our family heritage, our ancestors. I'm still thinking about South Africa's battle with race and racism, and America's battle with race and racism. I didn't realize that a lot of South Africans look to African-Americans for guidance on this, and that a lot of ideas have gone back and forth across the ocean. I think 10 years ago when I'd talk about these things, I was a little more lecturey. I don't have to be that way now.
Q: Do you think you’ll go back?
A: The plan is to go back next summer. Wright State takes a group of students every other summer. I want my son to go over while he's still a teenager. I have to go back — there's still so so much to learn.
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