This post is part of the series 13 Ways of Looking at the Northwest. You can find the initial post here.
By Heather Lowcock, Project Archivist, NHPRC Grant – News Tribune Collection
The act of teaching requires resilience and vulnerability. The act of learning requires a degree of discomfort and determination. In both, we wrestle with new ideas and make mistakes in order to gain knowledge and improve skill. To be in the midst of this experience with learners means that sometimes students may give a less-than-thrilled look like eighth-grader Karen Foster in her humanities class or block their ears like second-grader Michelle Gray during a school assembly. My high school students were sometimes prone to eye rolls and middle fingers!
However, in other moments, there’s the opportunity to observe focus like first-grader David Loredo, courage like fourth-grader Miranda Dart, curiosity like first-grader Kjel Agledal, spirit like these Bethel High School students or exuberance like the choir at Stanley Elementary School. Teachers spend hours drafting lesson plans like Bev Johe at Mark Twain Elementary, managing large classrooms like Kelly Collette at Tyee Elementary, introducing new technology like Richard Feutz at Meridian Middle School, and getting dunked for school funds like Donna Dedner at Orting High School. For me, the truest sense of community I’ve ever experienced happened in those maddening and joyous classrooms.
K-12 Schools
Marguerite Neely Davy started teaching sixth grade at the Bryant School in Tacoma in 1925. Her papers include examples of student assignments. A history paragraph about Queen Elizabeth I by student Melford Carnes explains the queen’s refusal to marry stating, “many of the men made love to her but were failures.” Carnes concludes by reminding the reader that Queen Elizabeth I was not a man, “as men may say”, but a “woman that had the willpower not to get married.” Other student work includes essays, poems, and short stories.
Davy’s papers also have a collection of student letters. Student Dick Ranke told her that when he “got rich” he would “buy [her] a big house and all the English books [she] wants.” Beverly Jean Rogers wrote Mrs. Davy in 1941, saying “I would do sixth grade over again just to have you as a teacher once more.” Another student, recalling Mrs. Davy, after graduating and starting art school in Los Angeles, wrote, “never have I enjoyed school so much, save this year at Art Center, than I did with you. Honestly, Mrs. Davy, you did understand us so.” Mrs. Davy spent over 30 years at Bryant School and retired in 1958.
Colleges and Universities
Teaching her Evergreen State college course, “Symbolization–The Emerging Individual” from the Colored Women’s Club in Tacoma, Maxine Mimms told the News Tribune in 1979, “College isn’t just getting a degree. It’s learning something and returning it back to the community.” In a later article, she states, “Education must sit in the heart of community.” Mimms joined the Evergreen faculty in 1972, teaching from her home in the Hilltop neighborhood. A fierce advocate for educational access and retention in urban areas, Mimms and her Hilltop courses put education at the heart of community and led to the founding of the Evergreen State College Tacoma Campus at 12th and MLK in 1982. After retiring in 1990, Mimms sought out new communities of learning, establishing the Maxine Mimms Academy to educate and support students who had been suspended or expelled from other schools. For more, check out interviews with Mimms in the WILLO records, the Paul Jackson Digital Videos, and this community history interview.
In November 1968, students from Tacoma Community College (TCC) and University of Puget Sound (UPS) took their education to the Tacoma City Council. The council had recently passed Ordinance no. 18669 under municipal code 8.12.010.41, in a 7-2 vote that banned the circulation of materials that “may incite crime, violence, or disrespect to enforcement officers.” Students argued that the ordinance was vague and restricted freedom of expression. Students from both colleges picketed outside of the City-County Building; others attended a “teach-in” rally at TCC. Students also attended the city council meeting in large numbers, spilling out into the hallways. While the students were unsuccessful in getting the ordinance repealed at the time, with Mayor Rasmussen stating, per the council minutes, “it would not be in the hands of the council nor the students and their professors to determine if the law violated the constitution,” the ordinance was later amended and 8.12.010.41 is no longer a part of the municipal code.
The Northwest Room’s archives include other materials by teachers and students, including interviews by Franklin Pierce and Lincoln High School students, and documents from the Perry Keithley Papers, the Winnifred Olsen Tacoma Schools Research Files, and the Margaret Rawson Goheen Papers. Our special collections also include school yearbooks and Washington education directories.
The digitization and processing of the News Tribune Photograph Collection was supported by a grant from the National Historic Publications and Records Commission at the National Archives.
Sources:
Bartley, Nancy. (1986, April 9). Three Tacoma women honored by Urban League. The News Tribune.
Davy, Marguerite Neely. (1895-1980). Correspondence, Cards, and Letters from Students. Marguerite Neely Davy Papers (4.3.4), Tacoma Public Library, Northwest Room, Tacoma, WA, United States.
Erickson, Jim. (1979, May 18). College just a state of mind, Evergreen instructor claims. The News Tribune.
News Tribune staff. (1968, November 13). Students take to sidewalk over law. The News Tribune.
Tacoma City Council. (1968, November 12). City Council Minutes–November 12, 1968. City Council Meeting Minutes (OCC0001), Tacoma Public Library, Northwest Room, Tacoma, WA, United States.
Tacoma City Council. (1968, October 22). City Council Minutes–October 22, 1968. City Council Meeting Minutes (OCC0001), Tacoma Public Library, Northwest Room, Tacoma, WA, United States.
Tewkesbury, Don. (1968, November 13). Students Learn, Laugh in protest to council. The News Tribune.
The Student Free Thought Committee. (1968). The Iconoclast. (periodical). Independent Newsletters and Periodicals Collection (5.4.1). Tacoma Public Library, Northwest Room, Tacoma, WA, United States.
