Blogs by m j . hollingshead
Atop My Hill 2
2/23/2005 5:02:43 AM
Molly Martin
The first 10 years of my life were marked with many moves; my parents were migrant farm workers living in California, Oregon and Arizona. By the time I entered the fifth grade I had been enrolled – re-enrolled in schools thirteen times. The one major saving grace was that my parents often returned to the same area where we had lived before and I did attend a school where I had friends and felt more comfortable than in the ones where I was always the new kid.
At age ten our wanderlust came to an end, my parents bought one acre of land in Tulare County, California and that brought my school upheavals to an end; sort of. My mother entered me into the public education system at age five, and by age ten I was ready to enter sixth grade. However, Mom told the new school I was ready for seventh grade thus I found myself ready to graduate from elementary school and move into high school at the age of twelve.
It was during my freshman year that we were shown a film, A Desk For Billie and had opportunity to hear Billie Davis speak: she too was the child of migrant farm workers. Ms Davis’ talk was meant to encourage us to bigger and better things. While my initial reaction was ‘oh sure, it worked for her, but I’ll never get to go to college,’ as time wore on that year I thought more about the film and the dream born in me as a five year old picking hops in Oregon. By golly, didn’t know how, but, I WOULD go to college and I WOULD become a school teacher.
During the final weeks of my Freshman year, my counselor and I met to prepare my Sophomore program of study. While my Freshman year had been devoted to Homemaking, Study Hall and required subjects, I blithely announced that my major had changed to College Prep and I wanted a full load of math, science, language etc. I refused to take my program home for parental approval …. They were not going to approve and it never crossed my mind to take the form out of the counselor’s office, sign it myself and return it to her. I guess I wore her down. She ultimately approved my new school plan, without my parent’s knowledge, and I began my College Preparation course.
It was not until mid year during my Sophomore year that Dad finally realized he had not seen a report card ... it was met with disbelief and the words 'People like us do not go to college’.
To my parents’ dismay I remained as adamant and without a clue for how to achieve my impossible dream as I continued my college prep course. During my Senior year all the senior girls were given a ‘Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow’ test. Well now, I scored highest of all our senior girls that year, and lo and behold the Visalia, California Emblem Club community project was a scholarship granted to the yearly recipient of the Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow award for my school.
I WAS GOING TO COLLEGE!
Graduation from Mt Whitney High School in Visalia, California at age sixteen actually kind of dictated my attending College of Sequoias for two years. Who on earth hires a sixteen year old for full time employment then or now? Of course, the end of the two years of community college education found me eighteen-years-old, armed with an AA degree and no prospects for more education.
The following year I worked at a small, local manufacturing plant; we made widgets for other companies. I also attended night classes at COS. It was during a typing class that I learned there were National Defense Student Loans available for those of us who might be willing to teach the migrant child. At that time California and many other states found themselves facing an influx of school age students, migrant farm children who were not always neat and tidy, who did not speak English, who came and went, and WHO WANTS TO TEACH THEM.
I did.
My National Defense Student Loan allowed me one semester and two summer sessions at University of California – Fresno. And, August found me armed with 91 units, and no more money. A woman in one of my summer classes told me about a first grade position open … two weeks before the beginning of school. The nice lady at the County Schools Office assured me that the school in question would never hire me, 91 units, no degree, too young – I was 19. I insisted she give me the needed paperwork for a Provisional Credential, marched myself into the nearby police department and was fingerprinted, required of teachers in California. Then I set out for the school needing a teacher. She called to warn them I was coming.
At the time I could not drive a car, Daddy drove me. He was discouraged, and, thought it best that I give up and return home to whatever work I could find. I was insistent that he take me to the school. The Superintendent was standing in the doorway, contract in hand as we drove into the parking lot. Thrusting the contract through the open car window he stood beside the vehicle and waited until I handed him the signed contract before he opened my door and ushered me inside his office. I received keys to my classroom, a plan book, a grade book and a teacher’s manual for the reading series used. Dad and I floated home on a cloud of euphoria.
Keep in mind it was two weeks before the start of school, there were 42 kids enrolled in that class. Dead certainty was; the superintendent did not want to face those kids on the first day of school. Reality is; he would have accepted any breathing entity.
I began what was to be the most wonderful job I can imagine. I raised my own children with a sense of security missing from my own childhood life. My yearly contract insured a steady, predictable income. I was assured a steady stream of young minds ready to learn. We all were winners.
I am the first generation in my family for whom college attendance is a given. My parents were not against schooling. They were simply beaten down and not able to see that college may well be available even for ‘People like us.’
My sister, just younger than I, met a tad of resistance when she announced her college prep plans two years behind me. Youngest sis met none: I was then teaching, and middle sis was a college Sophomore.
Had it not been that our Community College was near at hand, affordable and sent counselors to our high school to discuss our futures with us; I may well have never been able to actually attend. My two years spent at COS are some of my happiest memories.
At this time I would like to give back to community so to speak by encouraging other young people to consider what may be today their impossible dream.
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February 2005 Blogs
• Atop My Hill 2 - Wednesday, February 23, 2005
• Atop My Hill - Wednesday, February 09, 2005
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