Voice of Our Foremothers: Celebrating the Legacy of African-American Women Educators:A Personal Dedication

Birney grew up in a home with her adopted parents since the age of two.  She shared how being in this situation affected her. She goes on to talk about her college experiences and the impact her college pprofessors had on her life.  She attended the College of Wooster and majored in Psychology and Black Studies.  She had three college professors who really impacted her life.  They were able to help her connect her knowledge to "a broader world and understand the dynamics of her ever-changing place within the world" (50).  I totally agree with the quote she gave from Irvine about how students say that they perform better in a course that is taught by a professor who cares about their academic success and their well-being.  I agree because I have had teachers to impact my life.  I grew up in a predominantly white school and I do not recall having any Black academic teachers, but I had a couple of teachers who really imacted my life.  The most recent was my chemistry teacher in high school.  I have always had a love for math and science.  She recognized that I had the ability to have outstanding grades in her class.  However, I was one of those students who kind of followed others and I always just went along with the ideas of other students when we would do group projects.  One day she gave a group assignment but this time she chose the group leaders and I was amonst them.  This was the point in my educational career where I realized that I had great ideas of my own and that I could really explore them.  After that day she began to really push me to be an overachiever.  I had never had a teacher who believed in me so much and made an effort to push me to set higher eduational goals and actually believe that I could accomplish them.  I agree with Birney when she says that students tend to perform better when they have teachers who really care.
 She goes on to talk about how our foremothers past down the torch to us, the present generation.  There were several influential women who greatly impacted our educational opportunities such as Mary Terrell, Mary Bethune, and Luy Laney.  These black women not only were pursuing education for themselves, but they also wanted to uplift and educate the rest of the black community.  These women undertood that students not only needed to be equipped with "factual knowledge" but it needed to be "coupled with critical thinking skills to assist them in navigating and transforming negative social conditions" (54). 
Birney concludes by reiterating how our foremothers impacted us and how her professors impacted her personally.  She shares how she has impacted the lives of the students and adults that she taught in ways she never imagined.  She also has a daughter that she educates at home and she shares how she has the opportunity to really tap in to her daughter's "powerful and creative mind, body and spirit, and to help her make cultural connections that are often neglected in public schools" (54).  I personally believe that all black women should be knowledgeable about the historical black women who impacted us and helped make education accessible to us.