Morrison: ‘We’re all in this together’
05/09 -- Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison brought a message of hope to school board leaders facing tough economic times.
She urged the audience to acknowledge children’s needs—whether they are sick, prone to violence, or lack good parents.
Those children shouldn’t be separated or isolated, and neither should bright children, Morrison said. Bright children should be put into the mix to give them a chance to help others.
“I was one of the so-called bright students,” Morrison said, recalling being in school with children with all sorts of disabilities and challenges during the “real” Depression.
She spoke about being assigned to help a boy who only spoke Italian, to read to a girl who was partially blind, to help a child with polio walk to class, and to respond in case a boy with epilepsy had a seizure. Those experiences built understanding and compassion and the feeling that “we were all in it together.”
Morrison said she thought about language in a new way after trying to answer such questions as “What is blue?” from a blind girl.
“I don’t know if I helped her. I do know she helped me,” she said. “It led to an absolute love of language” and led to her calling as a writer.
The hardships of those days were deep, but they “required and produced innovations,” she said. There was no other way than to “rely on the faith of goodness of children to teach others.”
And while the nation is facing another time of economic hardship, the same message holds true: “We really are in it together,” she said.
In expressing her appreciation for being invited to speak here, Morrison said, “You are deeply, deeply impressive, and your influence ought to be enormous. Your dedication is clear.”
Morrison commiserated with school board members dealing with the tough conflicts that come with public service, noting that “strife and distractions” tend to surface and “certain kinds of battles proliferate” within non-profit organizations.
She recalled her experience as a member of the National Council on the Arts, which was responsible for handing out grants to artists.
“A battle over $300 for one poet versus $400 for another was bloody,” she said. But, she added, such conflicts helped her understand the “ferocity and passion” that accompany discussions about education policy.
“Pain, if you look at it another way, is information,” she said. “Failure is real data. When you find out something does not work, that data is vital.” At that point, she said, you can move to the next step—knowledge. “The final stage is wisdom.”