Dear Editor,
I was born on a plantation in Sharkey County in 1945.
I was around nine years old, my brother was eleven, when my mother decided to tell me a story about where I came from and why we had to move to Vicksburg and live with our grandparents. It was not until I understood my mother’s past that I really knew the real story why. My father had abandoned her and my brother and I on that plantation. After looking through mother’s belongings I found that I was only three years when this happened. My mother and father were married and carried the name Staples. What I found in mother’s belongings was a document from the Sharkey Court House where she petitioned the court to get her maiden name back, Ross, before we left.
Mother was a private person, and never mentioned my father to me nor focused on the past. . She never married again but had seven other children. She raised us to be independent, proud no matter where we lived or what we had, and to be thankful for what you got and make the best of it.
We all went to church and Sunday school. She went when she could because she worked two jobs and sometimes she had to work on Sunday. My oldest brother left home and went to the Army, and I became the head of the household when mother went to work. It was a task that served me well in my teaching. (Thanks, mom.)
Getting an education was not optional. If you lived in that house you went to school. When I was in the fifth grade I began to skip school a lot, and this did not set well with mother. She decided to change my enviroment, and she sent one of my younger brothers and I to Michigan to attend school for a year.
When we returned home mother took a second job and sent all six children to St. Mary's Catholic School. After two years I became a ninth grader and wanted to play football, but the school had no team. I went to mother and asked if I could go back to the public school so I could play football.
She asked me a simple question, “Do you think you can stay in school.” I said, “yes m’am.” We all went back to the public school. I played football, got a scholarship to Alcorn College, and here I am.
When I began to teach, all I saw was a bunch of children whose lives mirrored my life story so it was no problem as how I was to teach them – the same way mother taught me, with love, compassion and understanding. No university teaches a person how to teach, they only give you the subject matter. How you frame it and interject it into your students depends a lot on how and where you were raised.
This brings me to the meat of this letter, the first thing I wanted to know from my students was, who do you live with and where do you live? This gave me a clue as to how much love and understanding each student required of me just as my mother did her children .When a teacher takes on the job of teaching a child you become that parent whether you want to or not. I did not know it at the time, mother was teaching us how to absorb wisdom, knowledge and understanding, and above all have a good understanding.
I see grandparents being used in the schools, but I also see a waste. I suggest you let those grandparents read and tell stories to those young children under supervision. There is a great deal of knowledge, wisdom and understanding waiting to be used.
I ask the question how many of you see yourselves in my story?
Coach Johnny Staples
