Leader Teachers-Are You One?
"The most important thing to remember is this: To be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become."
__W.E.B. DuBois
As a life-long political activist and teacher, trainer and leader, I know first-hand that my education includes an unusual upbringing, over four decades of community work, and the culmination of three successful university degrees. In Northeast Detroit, I took part in intense teachings and trainings by my community's pro-active leaders following the 1967 race riots through the 1970's. This education became a necessary means to freedom's better ends. What the schools didn't teach us, our leaders taught us. What the textbooks didn't teach us, our leaders taught us. What we didn't know ourselves, our leaders taught us. Our leaders were many teachers of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as individuals who lead politically aware lives. One of my early teachers used to tell us that she had a "Ph.D. in Life" and she did. She was and is wise, celebrating now 84 years young.
Detroit, during these turbulent times, imposed the controversial STRESS (Stop the Robberies and Enjoy Safe Streets) program, especially prominent in use among Black males, Vietnam War protestors, and community people who began activating to address local social, economic and educational issues. Keeping good people out of trouble became a major concern for our community. In efforts to organize and unify community people towards better ends, we were taught by the leaders of a newly developed non-profit community organization. North End Concerned Citizens Community Council (NEC4). They provided us with free lectures, seminars, retreats and other functions intended to uplift people's hopes and realizations. They offered conversations and sharing of experiences, applied to our local community, our nation, and the Civil Rights Movement. Their intentions were to educate and activate positive change. Irrespective of race, we took part in strategies to offset the unfair limitations that were imposed through a wide variety of racist and prejudiced systems. Self-education became part of the lexicon of our plans to create change, allowing us to believe we can gather knowledge and exercise wisdom, giving us the power to break our economic, educational and self-imposed bonds.
A lot of students didn't finish school in my neighborhood. The paths of formal education dwindled over time, especially among the schools serving the impoverished people of color. The majority of young people often fell into only a couple of categories. They 1) joined the military, 2) went to jail, 3) moved away, and/or went to college, or 4) died, often violently. It was necessary for community leaders to stem the tide of failure and help us recognize our real potential as young people who took part in our own life decisions. All too often, there were others that decided for us that we were "locked in a poverty cycle." Poverty and civil rights issues have been around for a long time, but we have to ask ourselves, and answer ourselves, whether or not we can do better than to embrace the limiting ways of poverty's traps, racial traps, gang and violence traps, drug traps, or any other crooked roads laid before us. As young adults, we were taught to become aware and informed, and to step out of the suppressions, oppressions, and depressions we faced. We were taught to recognize the limitations and learned how to define ourselves as capable, and our goals as attainable.
Education comes from schools, yes. But it also comes from parents, mentors, from community leaders and church leaders, and volunteers whose work furthers community goals. We all can learn from books, from essays and poems, from experience and from others' experiences. We can learn from President Barack Obama whose community organizing skills LEAD our nation, in more ways than one. As a nation, we continue to learn from each other in our continued walk towards full citizenship, endowed with full citizenship rights and responsibilities.
During the Civil Rights Movement, I benefitted from the teachings of my community leaders, my community teachers, who taught us that we could advance ourselves by following effective strategies, to develop an understanding of “self-awareness, self-determination and self-respect to attain self-sufficiency.” These became the goals that we were taught—to offset the limitations imposed and perpetuated by racism and classism in America. We learned that we do not let others keep us ignorant, define us, or convince us to lower our opinions of ourselves, no matter the race, or culture, or religion, or creed. What I came to realize is that the beautiful individuals that our youth are can only lay down all the arguments against success—by growing success anyway. Education plays a key part of success’ growth.
Educating our communities can be accomplished by efforts of leaders and teachers, by reading, thinking and communicating, witnessing and steering yourself toward worthy goals. It is important to come together in unity and strength when creating strategies for positive and effective change. Self-education can be improved by each one assuming the responsibility of being their own first teachers. It can be improved by taking counsel from those who came before us, and are with us still, that share valuable lessons learned. Literacy allows the book learning necessary for us to prevent mistakes made from happening again, by not repeating them. Historical and future reference points can be constructed through knowledge gained. Ask yourself, “What has your solid education showed you that are worth sharing?” We automatically become teachers when we have learned, hopefully helping each other to achieve and practice self-awareness, self-determination, self respect and attaining self-sufficiency.
Although education does not guarantee absolute success, not learning takes you nowhere and keeps you there. Learn and learn how to lead, and you will become a leader who is a teacher.
“Ignorance is a cure for nothing.”
W.E.B. DuBois
About the Author: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-bell/30/231/855
