Young College Grads Help Break Poverty's Cycle in Mississippi's Mist-Shrouded Delta
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OXFORD, Miss. - A few years ago, Chimaobi Amutah was navigating the
violent, gang- and drug-infested inner city streets of Trenton, N.J.,
with 19 friends. Only three of them graduated from high school. Only
Amutah and one other didn't end up incarcerated.
Today Amutah, a 22-year-old Harvard University graduate, is among a group of young college graduates from around the country who are
fueling the hopes and dreams of thousands of schoolchildren in
Mississippi's poverty-stricken Delta.
"I want to take steps to help children change their environment,
because it's difficult to buck the norm without having someone who
cares," he says.
After earning a degree in African-American studies from Harvard, Amutah
joined the Mississippi Teacher Corps based at the University of
Mississippi. Since its creation in 1989, MTC has placed nearly 500
educators in the state's most impoverished schools. Most of them are
peppered across the flat, fertile plains of the Delta, where half of
all black children are born into poverty, and generations have grown up
facing economic hardships and despair.
"Their safety nets are either weak or nonexistent, and an education
helps them break through," says Joe Sweeney, a 2006 MTC graduate from
Traverse City, Mich. "We're helping move these children in the right
direction."
MTC worked for Crystal Stewart, 23, who grew up in Greenwood and was
taught by an MTC graduate. In Greenwood, most students in the
struggling public schools are black.
Crystal Stewart (top), a Mississippi Teacher Corps-trained teacher in the Holly Springs schools, helps rising sophomore Alleshia Payne during a summer school session. Nearly 50 MTC teachers are teaching summer school this year for students in the Holly Springs and Marshall County school districts. UM photo by Tobie Baker.
"We all went to public schools, while all of the white students went to
Pillow Academy," she says. "The only time I interacted with white
students growing up was outside of school in various extracurricular
activities."
Stewart herself joined the MTC last year and teaches in the Holly Springs school district. She has high hopes for her students.
"America needs to recognize that these students have the potential to
compete in the global economy," she says. "I want to introduce my
students to different cultures and different ways of life. If given the
proper resources, opportunity and motivation, they can be pushed to be
the best that they can be."
MTC co-director Andy Mullins, who also serves as executive assistant to UM Chancellor Robert Khayat, agrees.
"The children in the Mississippi Delta have been neglected for well
over 200 years when it comes to public education," Mullins says. "Their
suffering is due to the devastating effects that poverty has on
children, and studies show that children from high-poverty environments
tend to start the learning process well behind their peers from
middle-class backgrounds. This has been the case in several areas of
Mississippi, but it's especially pronounced in the Delta."
MTC carries on its work year-round to help break that cycle. This
summer, 47 of its members - including Amutah, Sweeney and Stewart - are
teaching much needed summer school courses to 84 children in the Holly
Springs and Marshall County school districts. Although these schools
are located in the rolling hills of north-central Mississippi, miles
from the Delta, poverty is evident, as 90 percent of the schoolchildren
receive free or reduced-cost lunches. (In comparison, less than 40
percent of children in neighboring Lafayette and DeSoto county schools
qualify for such assistance.)
"Students here have so few resources in their lives," says Sweeney,
principal of the MTC summer school program. "I want to work in public
schools and help children. It's important to educate them, so they can
have a chance to make something of themselves."
It's the same sentiment expressed by Amutah, who during the regular
school year is a history teacher in Humphreys County, in the middle of
the Mississippi Delta. Growing up, he faced social problems similar to
those of his students in Mississippi.
"There was never a dull moment," he says. "It was the inner city.
Gangs, drugs and violence were common. I tell my students that I am not
the best teacher. The best lessons in life come from experiences, and I
try to help them understand the lessons I've learned so they can keep
their heads above water."
The caring attitudes of Amutah and the other MTC teachers at Holly
Springs this summer are lighting up the faces and fueling the dreams of
84 students in grades 7-12 from throughout Marshall County.
With her hair pulled back in a ponytail, 15-year-old Alleshia Payne, a
rising sophomore, eagerly says, "I want to be a doctor one day."
Rising senior Arana Taylor, 18, smiling with braces gleaming, also
hopes for a brighter future. "Since I was a little girl, I've dreamed
of being a lawyer," she says.
Courses offered this summer include math, algebra, English, history,
biology and science. At a cost of less than $7.50 each per day,
students receive round-trip transportation, two meals and coursework
throughout the six-week program.
"This is an affordable outlet for both enrichment purposes and to help
students who fell short during the regular school year," says Jerry
Moore, Marshall County Schools director of instructional services.
"It's a tremendous dropout prevention tool that offers hope to these
children. It's a light at the end of the tunnel for many of them."
If not for the cooperation between UM, the MTC and county and city
school districts, the summer school program would be impossible to
operate, Moore says. "Ole Miss and the Teacher Corps have been very
good to us," he says. "They've provided us with some great teachers."
The MTC is one of the nation's most competitive two-year, alternate
route teaching programs. Designed for noneducation majors, the program
recruits college graduates to teach in the Delta and other
critical-needs areas. In return, participants receive teacher training
and certification, a full scholarship for a master's degree in
education, job placement that includes full pay and benefits, and, most
importantly, an opportunity to help strengthen education in one of the
nation's poorest regions.
Strengthening the country's educational system is one of the tasks
Americans expect the next president to address. The two major
candidates for the job will be at UM Sept. 26 for the first
presidential debate. Its focus is domestic issues, and education is
sure to be among them.
For students like Payne and Taylor to succeed in critical-needs public
schools, it's important for them to encounter teachers who care and
love them, Mullins says.
"Many of our children don't have any hope until they meet one of our
Mississippi Teacher Corps teachers," he says. "Slowly, and surely in
some cases, we are making a difference in the lives of children who
have fallen victim to this vicious cycle."
With dedicated teachers like Amutah, Sweeney and Stewart, hope springs eternal for these children.
"The students have to understand that you are in the classroom for the
right reasons in order to build their trust," Amutah says. "You must
gain their respect. Education is based on lighting a fire in your
students, and not simply filling a void. I push my students very hard.
It's tough love, and I love them all."
