An educational memoir

12.15.10 By José Valenzuela

Remembering the exact moment when I began to value education is a difficult task. I choose instead to put down on paper some of my recollections of the years I spent in schools. I recall the perfect scores on my geography quizzes in Mr. Kennedy’s 5th grade class at the Sumner Elementary in Roslindale. I also remember all of the “F’s” in 6th grade at the Park School in Brookline. I might begin with 8th grade Civics with Mr. Fulton, one of the first teachers of color I ever had in my school career (Mr. Redd, another African-American man, taught me Reading in the 7th grade; as I recall, he was one of the few teachers for whom I ever read a book, let alone several of them). Mr. Fulton was a long-time veteran teacher. He had grown up in Missouri, wore a suit every day to school, and spoke like a man who had a million dollars stashed away in his many investments, not like a man who lived alone on the first floor of a triple-decker in Jamaica Plain (which he was). He had been a drill sergeant in the US Army before becoming a schoolteacher. He never left that drill sergeant life behind, though. He was tough and demanding, but fair.  He was self-deprecating and never minded that his students called him “Fat Boy”. What I remember most was that he believed in his students. My love for history started in that classroom. I remember a time at Logan Airport when he screamed at the ticket counter, accusing the women behind it of racism. Nine of my classmates and I were supposed to fly to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Our flight would be delayed for over 24 hours. They told us little. He was probably right; it was unfair, the way they treated us. Still, what I will remember most is that he fought for us, for himself. He did not back down. He always was the drill sergeant.

I also recall a meeting I had with my guidance counselor in the fall of my senior year. “You might want to consider adding some more ‘reasonable’ schools to your list,” she said. My list included mostly elite schools: Williams, Brown, Johns Hopkins, University of Chicago, and others. By this point, I no longer felt anger. This was motivation. “Can’t” was a word I heard often in high school, but by the time I was a senior, I stored it in my ammunitions chamber, only to use it later. By my senior year, that chamber was full; cocked and loaded. For me, education was spiteful. I would throw my strong report cards in the faces of those that did not believe in me. I no longer needed Mr. Fulton to believe in me. I believed in my talent. I would be admitted into Williams College on an early decision.

I finished college in four years. My abuela cried on graduation day. Her hands are callused from so many years of working the earth of the valle in the western frontier of the Dominican Republic. She raised eight children on her own, in a time when bloodshed was frequent and dictators and US Marine Corps occupations brought terror. I wore my Dominican flag across my back when I crossed the stage. In that moment, my education mattered to more people than just me.

My educational memoir is an exercise in selective memory. It is a story that I tell others and myself that gives hope that success is possible. I do not believe in giving value to hardship. All humans have suffered or do suffer. We accomplish little in comparing one suffering with another. However, we do find value in the stories we hear. These are recollections, but my story is my parents’ and grandparents’ story. We are the Dominican-American dream.