Dr. Paulette Harris, Female, Caucasian, Literacy Center and Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia

Interviewee: Dr. Paulette Harris, female, Caucasian, Literacy Center and Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia Interviewers: Dr. Niki Christodoulou, Dr. Darla Linville, Augusta University ******************** Dr. Christodoulou: So, I want you to share with us some background information about you. Your name, um where you were born, when, if you want, your ethnic background. (0:19) Dr. Harris: Ok. My name is Paulette Harris and um I was born Paulette Proctor and on October 5th, 1949 here in Augusta Georgia at University Hospital. And um, went to school here um all the way through – graduated from high school from Richmond Academy in 1967; and then, I went to Augusta College starting in Fall of ‘67 as an Undergraduate majored in French, and um was minoring in music most of that time. And um, changed my mind toward the end that I might want to teach. Since, I’d actually taught Piano since I was 13; probably would of have made sense that I would have thought I might want to teach. But, I guess I saw that as a different type of teacher. And so, um I changed right at the end and fortunately they didn’t have a whole lot of requirements for you to change at that point in time, from um completing my French to um adding a field in Education. So, that I could – I did a lab, one lab, during that period of time and one public school. Um, I remember going out to [INSERT NAME OF SCHOOL] and I was in the seventh grade Science class, which was quite a change from a French major to begin with a seventh grade science class. And, I always remember that the, the gentleman who was the teacher at that school at that time told me that the next week I would come in and I would be doing a unit from – for his class that dealt with the skeletal system and bones. And, I looked in the room and there were all these bones and I thought, oh my I’m not really a bones-kind-of- touching-person. But, I will do what I can next week when I come back. So, that was my first real lab experience as a prospective teacher in the schools, and the only one that I had as an undergraduate student. And, next semester, or quarter it was, they let me student-teach and I ended up in a seventh grade Math class for student teaching. Again, an interesting experience for a French major to do that. And, um, worked out of school in Richmond County right across from Richmond Academy where I graduated for that student teaching – worked under a teacher who had only taught for three or four years but she was much older. She’d come back as an older individual to teach and really learned a whole lot and spent the next few weeks after I finished that student teaching at that same school doing substitute teaching, which was an eye-opening experience for me. All this was in the early 1970’s, and um they hadn’t been a first grade class. And, I never will forget my most poignant memory of that first grade class was that um the teacher left that so that you can read to the class every day after lunch which was the most comfortable thing for me to do - was to read for first graders. And so, I did have a whole lot of experience having worked with them in any other context. And, I will never forget and I’ve told many people this story. But, after a few days of the teacher being out she was back, and I was waiting for them to call me somewhere else they’re to substitute and she sent me a note. Not an email or anything, because we weren’t up to that – so kind of a handwritten note through Principal’s office that the next time I came in, I was only to read one chapter after lunch to the class, no matter how much they wanted to hear more; this was limited to one chapter. And, I always remember when later I began to teach Reading that I thought if they’re really eager to listen to you reading, then they want you go a little bit further, I didn’t think it was terrible crime to have read a little bit more than that to them. But, I’ll always remember that experience. Also, remember that seventh grade teacher where I’d done my student-teaching telling me right at the beginning, a lot of the children who I was student teaching came from housing projects. And, she said, “you had to be really careful,” because I never will forget that she said that one had gotten in her purse. And I thought, you know, hmm I never got any money; I don’t have to worry about that. She said, “Oh no, this was a child who had took it to the bathroom and dropped it in the commode.” And I thought, well that was a little different. I’ll always remember that experience. Fortunately, it never happened to me, but I was on my guard just in case. But, definitely a different group of students than the group I had graduated from just a few years before. And um, it was always interesting to, to relate what experience I had had to these students because, you know, I started coming to Augusta College when I was 17 and so when I finished I was 21. I had not done the student teaching experience and except that lab in the Science class, and the student teaching with the seventh grade Math students, and the first grade substituting; and, there had been plusses and minuses. But, I’d decided that being a teacher was a good thing for me. (5:06) Dr. Christodoulou: And, so, what do you remember of uh your contribution in the area of C.S.R.A? Like so, so you became a teacher um … (5:23) Dr. Harris: I waited a few months between graduating and deciding to be a teacher for sure – spent some quarter in France at [INSERT UNI. NAME HERE] and we went to um the [INSERT UNI. NAME HERE]. And so, I really didn’t lose that emphasis on wanting to teach French if I were to teach something. But unfortunately, that time, foreign language being taught to young children and even middle grades, which then was junior high school, wasn’t taking place very much. And so, I looked for the right position there – I interviewed private and public and then I went to the public schools and um they had me interview at a school, and I went back to the gentleman who was the Personnel Director, and he said, “Um, you’re fine but what I’d like for you to do is go down to John W. Hotton at 333 Greene Street and teach them Reading.” Which, you know, I thought oh I’d love to see small groups of children gather around, and we would be just reading away, and that was the interest that I had in it and - was pretty much how he described it. I would have a certain number of groups per day, and I would be teaching Reading, and I went down and talked to the Principal, and liked him a whole lot, and thought well this is probably better than the others I’d talked to where none were even close to French. So, Reading was certainly moving in that direction. So, I think I started the next day; it was October and the first teacher who had been there, her name was Ms. Murphey, they referred to her often, and apparently had a really difficult time and they really didn’t want her to leave, however. They were changing the fifth grade, you know, in the middle to this new teacher who had come in was a little challenging for me and for them. I never will forget the students would say, “But, Ms. Murphey wouldn’t do it that way.” And, I heard that many times over several days and I thought well I just will pretend that I don’t hear them saying that and will do it the way that I think might be best, keeping in mind I hadn’t had a lot of experience, but really always liked working with children. And so, I had um 15 children, five classes. I became part of a Title I Reading program – that’s where they wanted me to teach Reading. And so, every hour I’d change classes and had another class of 15, boys and girls mixed in there, and was really enjoying it a whole lot; that was um the fall on ‘71. Well, in February of ’72, Richmond County schools decided they were going to um integrate the school system fully. You know, Brown Board vs. Board of Education was back in ’54. So, they had taken a long time to get to this point. I will back up and tell you that there was a little integration at Richmond Academy when I was a Junior and Senior there. Um, they placed all the girls in classes with all girls, and they had placed all the boys in classes with boys. And so, my Junior and Senior year, I was – particularly, the Junior Year with exactly the same students all girls in every class.

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