Ms. Barksdale

Ms. Barksdale’s presentation was very informative. The school board at my high school definitely had a presence, but no one ever took the time to explain how a school board really runs or for what duties they’re actually responsible. Dr. Mullins had explained to us the problems that arise when superintendents are elected, and Ms. Barksdale’s talk helped to clarify one specific way in which this becomes a problem. The only personnel that the school board has direct charge of is the superintendent, and if they do not have the power to appoint him, it would seem that this severely undermines their ability to effectively be the superintendent’s “boss” of sorts.

 Another thing that I found shocking was that only 9% of Oxford’s school budget is funded by the federal government (with 48% coming from locals and 43% from the state). Because funding for the schools relies so heavily upon property taxes, the areas that are poorest have houses with less value and thus have less money for the schools. These children are already coming to school with a slew of decided disadvantages: they’ve been exposed to language (never mind complex language) much less than their peers from wealthier families, they’ve often never been read to or don’t have books in the home, their home environments are often unstable, and oftentimes they lack the support systems that help students to develop emotionally and socially. Even with the best funded schools, it would be quite a challenge to adequately help these children, but they’re entering underfunded and generally poorly staffed schools, and so the cycle continues.

When Ms. Barksdale described her relationship with B, a young man for whom she has been a tutor and just a generally supportive and stable person, I couldn’t help but feel inspired. It is for kids like B, good kids who aren’t afraid to work hard even when it seems that everything in the world is stacked against them, that I want to become a teacher. And children like him exist everywhere—perhaps more often in poverty, but there are all types of poverty, e.g. emotional, cultural, etc.—although these often overlap. What I really mean is that to enact positive change, you don’t have to travel to the most impoverished or war torn areas of Africa, or even to places of poverty like the Mississippi Delta (although these do offer wonderful and engaging opportunities for service). I plan to be involved in education in some capacity for the rest of my life (most likely teaching English, but I’m also interested in sociolinguistics or perhaps running my own school), but wherever that takes me, whether it involves Mississippi or not, I can at least surely say that I will work to be a positive force in the life of children.