Lorde’s Illustration of the Teachers She Encountered

 

Lorde illustrates Mrs. Bakers desire to help Audre get past her fury by reading to her “Madeline, and Horton Hatches the Egg” and another story “about a bear named Herbert who ate up an entire family, one by one, starting with the parents.” Which gave Audre the desire to read.  Her mother teaching her to read and write, they were able to send her to the sight conservation kindergarten for children with sight problems.

 

“Miss Teacher” terrified her by making her write with a crayon the letter A which Audre could do but did not understand to do, the teacher shamed her by telling her in front of the other students "Imagine that, a big girl like you. Such a shame, I'll have to tell your mother that you won't even try. And such a big girl like you!" Then she would threaten her with, "I see we have a young lady who does not want to do as she is told. We will have to tell her mother about that."

 

Sister Mary of Perpetual Help ran the first grade class with an iron fist.  Audre’s mother let Sister know that Audre was a handful.  I think it gave Sister MPH a preconceived idea that Audre couldn’t read or write as well as she could.  She thought the worse before believing the better for instance when Audre did her homework of cutting out words from the newspaper Sister MPH said, "This was to be our own work, children," she said. "Who helped you with your sentence, Audre?" Of course Audre had done it herself and she was proud of it. But Sister MPH didn’t believe Audre and tried to get her to tell the truth by bullying her with "Our guardian angels weep when we don't tell the truth, Audre. I want a note from your mother tomorrow telling me that you are sorry for lying to the baby Jesus."  The note came from her mother and Audre got promoted from the “Brownies” to the “Fairies”.

 

It seems a lot of teachers back then didn’t know how to handle the children and used shaming or threatening as a way of producing the truth.