Central Connecticut State University
Center for Excellence Social Emotional Learning Symposium 11/21/24
Keynote Dr. Jesse P. Turner CCSU Literacy Center Director
Who, am I, I am a teacher whose pedagogy is my humanity
A little historical background about the CESEL
Welcome, to our CESEL Symposium, it is an honor to open our symposium. The whole idea of Social Emotional Learning Center began years ago shortly after the December 14, 2012, mass shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. 20 children between the ages of 6 and 7, and 6 school staff were brutally murdered. A tragedy that indicated school as usual was no lingered an option. In those early days, you could hear and see the whispered dreams of faculty in Counselor Education and Family Therapy, Education Leadership, the Dean’s office, Special Education, and other departments like my own Literacy, Elementary Education. Former Dean Mike Alfano and Nelbra Marguez Green were part of those whispered dreams, and of course, Dr. Peg Donohue as were others who should be named, but time prevents me from giving all the respect and honor they deserved. Something grew out of a pain too deep to bury inside. I am a believer in the whispered dreams of all of you here today, and of all those who came before.
Love wins
We were inspired by a grieving mother with a Love Wins sign. Our school counseling program emerged out of the efforts of the Department of Counselor Education and Family Therapy to change school as usual. That department would lead the efforts to see a new certification for school family counselors in Connecticut. Dr. Donohue and Dr. Ryan can fill in the gaps better than I later on today. Find the time to ask her about those dreams, and the efforts to keep those dreams alive. After Sandy Hook, I could not begin without saying school as usual is over. The kids are not alright, I am not sure if they ever were. Now, it is time to share my story.
Why me?
I am Dr. Jesse P. Turner the CCSU Literacy Center Director, that temple of hope, diverse books across the hall, where children are more than test scores. My nickname is “Readdoctor”, over the past few decades I have earned a reputation as a teacher who inspires a love of reading for those who struggle with reading. I am an old Civil Rights Activist who has walked 400 miles to Washington DC twice in the past 14 years protesting failed high-stakes testing policies that have cost our nation’s taxpayers some three trillion dollars. I have twice occupied the United States Department of Education in DC with a dedicated group of activist educators. I am known as an education activist nationally. Why, because our nation spends 23 billion dollars more every year on Wealthy predominantly White Schools than on predominately Black and Brown schools in poor communities. We also spend 1. 9 billion on high-stakes testing whose results do not come back until our children go on to the next grade. 24. 9 billion dollars chasing the wrong data, the wrong policies, and the wrong reforms. In 2018 even our own Connecticut State Supreme Court ruled that the richest state in the union is not responsible for giving Black, Brown, and Special Education children an equal and high-quality education, merely access to a basic one. The kids are not alright, schools are not alright, and neither are our teachers and counselors. I have been arrested in acts of Civil Disobedience advocating for a Moral Budget, for Black Lives Matter and for Labor. I am one of the ones you called when you want to load the Paddy Wagon for just causes. But most of all I am a teacher whose pedagogy is rooted in Humanity.
My Introduction to Humanity came in strangers
I like to begin where I first witnessed this Pedagogy of Humanity. I was a child suffering from childhood trauma. My father an abusive alcoholic, screaming, breaking things, and yes hitting us were the norm in my childhood. Mothers and children live with trauma, not because they want to, but because they see no way out. Children live with trauma, not because they want to, but because they have no choice. Teachers teach children living with trauma not because they want to, but because they have no magic wands to wash it away.
Before I go further, you should know I love my father, I forgave him, and held his hand as he left this world. At the age of 10, one night my father came home in a rage, screaming, breaking things, and he raise his hand to slap my mother. I stepped in between that blow, and the fighting ended, and by the next night he had left us. No note, just gone. I come to understand he left, because he loved us too much to hurt us anymore.
My mother was a waitress working six days a week for nickels and dimes. Without my father she could not afford the rent, we would soon be evicted. For the next two years, we were homeless. My mother’s days were spent trying to earn enough for a night in a flop house single-room occupancy hotel. Often the choice was food or a bed. Many nights we found ourselves on the wooden benches of our local train station. The station had clean bathrooms, and even showers, and the local police were kind enough to ignore us. The custodians were even kinder, they would close the men’s restroom so my mother could help me shower in the men’s bathroom, and brush my teeth. These small acts of kindness from strangers became my first glimpse of humanity. A few years ago, I visited that train station and signs were hanging down near every bench, you can only sit here for two hours. Where is the humanity in that?
I found humanity at church and the library
On Sundays, we would go to church. I learned to love services in between the free hot chocolate and donuts. My mother's high school friend worked at the local library, and after school, she looked after me until my mother came home from work. Another act of humanity. I was the only child who given hot soup, chocolate and cookies at the library. What more could a child ask for than the warmth of a library, books, and some soup. These acts of humanity made life bearable.
Now, about school during that first homeless year. I was trouble, hungry, cold, angry I was explosive, and could launch into hitting, biting, kicking, and throwing things. I have no clue how my teachers dealt with me. I could not share that child until some years ago. Trauma has a way of burying itself deep inside. I would begin to share that child with the teachers I teach, not because I felt like sharing war stories, but because I recognized in them, they were living their own Trauma into their own schools.
Why they call it a school-to-prison pipeline
I am 69 years old, in my days there were no school counselor, no education psychologist, no social worker, no free breakfast, no free lunch. None of these things were available in the ghetto schools of 55 years ago. Even today there are schools in our poorest communities who lack these services, and free school lunch programs are always targets for conservative leaders. No, wonder, Dr. Michelle Alexander in her Seminal work: The New Jim Crow” refers to our public schools in poor communities of color as the School to Prison Pipeline. Don’t you dare blame my teachers did the best they could with what they had with me that year. Sometimes we had no bed at night, but we had food to eat, sometimes we had a bed, and nothing to eat, and sometimes we had both. My teachers could not change that for us, and trust me I was not the only child in these circumstances. I have no doubt I was headed down that school-to-prison pipeline, the gangs were calling me. A kid who loved to fight was always on their radar.
My humanitarian guard dogs
My mother and her librarian friend would not let the gangs have me. They were my guard dogs watching a child enthralled with hoodlum life. I wanted in, I felt like I belonged, but I could not break the broken heart of a mother whose heart had been broken too many times. My mother had no problem telling the badgang bangers hands off her son. Our meek librarian chased them away many a day.
My Introduction to the Pedagogy of Humanity
In year two of my homelessness, I first met this pedagogy of humanity in Mr. B, I would meet my pedagogical hero. At school, I had failed every subject even gym. My mother who was a high school graduate, whose three daughters were as well, feared I was destined to become a dropout and like my father. However, the librarian little Jess is smart, he reads, he loves books. The kid is reading far above his grade. He has read all of Dickens's books, and Victor Hugo’s books. He eats Alexander Dumas’s books, the Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Christo, and The Man in the Iron Mask. My mother’s Librarian friend said at first Margie, I thought he was pretending, trying to impress me, but I started asking him questions about what he was reading, the boy remembers and knows it all. She knew books were my escape, my refuge, and heaven. My escape from the hell we were living. Still, none of it came through at school until Mr. B, began to feed me.
Breaking the cycle
Some educators follow test scores and grades, seeing deficits, numbers, and harsh realities. God answered my mother’s prayers, he sent her an angel in the classroom. A teacher who follows the child, a kid watcher, who looks behind the data, and sees the child. That teacher was Mr. B. I went to school when physical punishment was allowed. Two years before Mr. B. Our fifth-grade teacher whose pedagogy was rooted in some kind of Toxic Masculinity. It was back in the day when the whole school would wait outside in class lines, rain or shine. He used to tell all the boys to tighten their arms, and put out your arms. He would proceed to punch us to see how much a man we were before we went in. If we flinch, he hit us again. I used to pride myself in never crying, never showing any pain, showing my manliness. I was being immersed in the same Toxic Masculinity my father followed along with most of the men in our community. Although I did not show it, it was breaking me. When people tell me schools have not changed, I know better. Enough toxicity, better days would come.
Now back to Mr. B, my Pedagogical Humanity Hero. He was new, they gave him the toughest kids, the lowest kids, the trouble ones. In those days there were no free and reduced lunch programs. No school cafeterias, you either brought your lunch to school or walked home to eat. I had no home or lunch. Children who brought their lunch were expected to eat in the school year. Mr. B allowed us to sit in the classroom, where it was warm and dry. During those first 2 weeks, he noticed the boy who had no lunch. The kid who always said that he hated lunch. I have no idea what pedagogies Mr. B’s professors at university exposed him to, but I have come to know that his pedagogy was his humanity. A pedagogy fed by love.
He had a way of finding out stuff about us, that is to say, he never talked at you, but with you. He knew I like Liverwurst. He thought it funny that the kid who hated liver did not realize that Liverwurst was a liver product. Mr. B at lunch one day open his lunch bag and shouted out, crap my wife made me two Liverwurst sandwiches, I hate Liverwurst. Then he said Jesse, you like Liverwurst, can you help me out, and eat one for me. He fed me for a year, and he gave me new gloves, socks, and even a coat. He said he found these things in the lost and found box. His humanity broke me down, lifted me up, and broke the cycle of toxic anger in me. I blossomed into the smartest kid in the room, and I would never know anything but As for the rest of my life. I found deeper meaning in church services, and developed a sense of humanity of my own.
Breaking the chains of Masculinity
More importantly, he taught me a new kind of masculinity, one rooted in kindness, sharing, and caring. Kindness was as manly as it gets for him. Mr. B would eventually call my older sister Jessica when he found out about my living conditions, she was a young newlywed and a former student. He would tell her about where my mother and I were living,.He knew she was a young newlywed, but he would ask her if she and her husband could take me in. My brother-in-law did not have a college degree, but he led with his humanity. Mr. B, was my savior, so was my sister, my brother-in-law, and so was my mother. It took my mother years until she had her own place. I moved back home at 18. I lived with her for my undergraduate years at university. Those years were golden.
I live my own Pedagogy of Humanity
57 years later I have traveled the path from homeless kid to honorable son, brother, uncle, husband, father man of peace, to Ph.D. from classroom teacher to blogger, activist, and to the teacher, Mr. B would be proud of. I only started sharing my childhood with my teachers. Childhood trauma gets buried deep in side, it seldom sees the light of day. I started sharing my childhood story after realizing many of the teachers I prepared were living in trauma of their own, low pay, lack of resources, lack of respect, and too high expectations from administrators. I watch some of the best walk away from teaching. I thought sharing the story of Mr. B, might help them see why they should stay.
There are other pedagogical heroes in my story, feel free to visit me across the hall in our CCSU Literacy Center. Come learn about Mrs. Stanfield, Mrs. Sanchez, Coach Greer, Professors Dorothy Menosky, Yetta Goodman, Rudine Sims-Bishop, Louise Rosenblatt, Dorothy Strickland, Denny Taylor, and others. Best of all, listen to me talk about the children I have taught in our public schools, here in our CCSU Literacy Center, for they are my inspirations, real teachers, and greatest heroes. These days I am wearing my latest gift from another hero a second-grade girl who solved Dr. Turner's wedding band problem.
Mr. Rogers ask, “who are the people in your neighborhood”. I say find the people who lead with humanity and love.
Peace, thank you for listening to my story, Dr. Jesse P. Turner CCSU Literacy Center Director
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| Our CCSU Pedagogy Humanity Posse |
If you like to listen to the song that inspired my morning walk, it was Cat Steven's "King of a land"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5XM5btvU0Q&list=RDp5XM5btvU0Q&start_radio=1
