As a soon-to-be teacher, I understand that students who walk into my classroom one day may not have eaten breakfast. They might even walk in on a Monday morning with their last meal being the one they ate at lunch on Friday. They might walk in without being bathed. They might walk in wearing dirty clothes that are two sizes too small. Poverty is everywhere but I have never truly understood how severe the cycle of poverty is within our country until I watched "LaLee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton." There's some things the textbooks just can't teach you.
Directed by Deborah Dickson, Albert Maysles, and Susan Froemke, this powerful documentary reveals the truth about the never ending cycle of poverty that continues to engulf generation after generation. This incredibly moving film isn't your typical documentary; it's a wake-up call for everyone. Focused on the lives of those who live in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, one of the poorest counties in the nation where the era of slavery and cotton picking still lingers over 150 years later, we're introduced to the family of LaLee Wallace. Acting as caretaker, LaLee does all she can to support her grandchildren. They have no money, little to no food, and no running water. The children bathe in buckets when they can and make trips into town with LaLee to fill up plastic jugs from the town water pump. Many of us see this as poverty but to many it's just another day in the Delta.
Not only do we see their home life but we see the children's school, part of the West Tallahatchie School District, where we're introduced to Reggie Barnes, a passionate superintendent who's determined to raise test scores to ensure their schools are taken off probation. The West Tallahatchie School District, like most schools in low-income areas, not only face the problem of not having money because there's no tax base but they face the problem of making education a priority. Granny, one of LaLee's granddaughters, shows promise in school but like most children who grow up in poverty, when you're trying to survive in a world where you have nothing there's no time for school work. When children grow up in an environment plagued by illiteracy it is extremely difficult to teach them why school is so important. How can we show students what they're capable of if they've never been exposed to the possibilities?
There's hope.
After watching the film, I began to ask a lot of questions. Luckily, Katie Naron, the elementary instructor and reading specialist who showed this documentary to my class, had firsthand experience working with the same district. The West Tallahatchie School District received a donation of brand new texts books from Morgan Freeman, someone who grew up in Tallahatchie County himself and was very familiar with their difficult circumstances. After the donation was made Freeman knew the teachers needed someone to train and help map their curriculum based off of the new books. He decided to contact Dr. David Rock, the dean of education at the University of Mississippi. Katie Naron was then asked to spend a year in the school district to assist with the curriculum, "It was a completely eye-opening experience." She was amazed at how "old and obsolete" the former text ooks were, recalling her astonishment at how out of date the school building itself was. When she first agreed to go help, a coworker of hers told her she needed to watch something before she went, LaLee's Kin. "It's a vicious cycle of poverty," Naron says, "Anytime we can try and understand what goes on around us, as teachers, we try to do so because we need to understand." Like many, Naron grew up in a working class family while attending public school but says she was very fortunate to grow up in a home where education was considered a priority.
We've began to see a greater emphasis on education in the Delta due to programs such as the Tallahatchie Early Learning Alliance, TELA, an initiative of the Tallahatchie River Program funded by Morgan Freeman and his daughter, Morgana, both of which take a tremendous amount of time to involve themselves in the program. TELA , 1 of 11 grants for early childhood education in the state of Mississippi, continues to help students with a mission to:
"Empower Tallahatchie County to engage in a three-part process for quality education reform: collaborate, solve, and sustain.
- Collaborate to translate proven models to meet local needs
- Solve what's actionable today
- Sustain what works and grow towards tomorrow"
"Seeing this documentary made me realize that school is the brightest spot of someone's day," says Naron, "Persuade people to watch it."
One of the most important things we can do is spread awareness about this issue. This isn't just happening in the Delta of Mississippi, it's happening everywhere whether we're aware of it or not. I decided to write about this issue to not only shed light on it but to make others understand that this problem isn't going to go away unless we do something. We live in the year 2016 yet there are families who can't read and have no running water or food. There are kids in classrooms who come from these same families. Think of how different your life would be if you and your parents were illiterate; your entire world would be flipped upside down. Whether you're an educator or not, you can make a difference by simply being aware- watch this documentary and encourage others to watch it because it'll make you look at the world a little differently. You may not be Reggie Barnes, or Katie Naron, or Morgan Freeman, but you can still help.
Mrs. Naron pointed out how school is sometimes the brightest part of someone's day and I hope that one day, when I have a classroom of my own, I am someone's bright spot.
