Won't Hold me Back
Cooper, Erica (2010-02-02)

PART 1
>>INTERVIEWER: Hi, my name is Eid and I'm a senior student at OSU and today I heard that you attended a GED program. Would you like to talk about it?

>>ERICA COOPER: Sure, I guess the journey of my GED really began when I was probably junior high to high school. Now that I look back on it, I kind of grew up in a household that really did not promote literacy, didn't promote anything where studies were concerned. So, when I entered into the 11th grade, before my 12th grade year, I found out I was going to be a mother for the first time. And, all the while, to some that it was shocking, it was a hard thing to accept. I decided to continue on with my GED because I knew that I wasn't going to be able to provide for, not only myself, but for my sons, had I not given myself the opportunity to do better. So, I decided that I wasn't going to allow anyone to, a phrase that I like to use a lot is, block my blessings, by just giving up and just being what everybody thought the status quo of a young teenage mom was about. So, I really took it seriously from the very moment I found out that he was on the way. I lived on my own. I made sure that he was involved with programs to where his literacy was a focal point, that was going to be a focal point in his life because I knew that being a young African American man that I was raising, it was going to be crucial that I be a strong enough woman to guide him in the direction to be able to understand that literacy is extremely important in your life and that without it you can't do anything, day to day things. 

Well, initially one of the very first books that I read that, actually before I became a mom, that pushed me into the type of parent that I am, my son's names are Malik and Malcolm, and I'm a very significant Malcolm X fan. And I liked his story before, but I loved him as a man after he took his journey to Mecca, because it showed me that somebody can be greater than what they thought they were. So, with him, previously having the name of Malcolm X with the nation of Islam, and then changing it to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, so there's Malik and Malcolm, my sons. And ever since they were old enough to comprehend their names, I engaged them in the understanding of what their names meant and how powerful their names were, so that they could use that as a tool to be strong and to be successful and to be their own people. And not be influenced by something that somebody else told them that they should be or that they can't be. So, in fact when my son was two used to tell people his name was Malcolm X, so that was always kind of inspiring to me to continue to show them how much was available and how just a book, like Malcolm X Autobiography by Alex Haley, was, that was the book that initially prompted me to open up my need and my yearn for reading and for literacy. I guess another couple of books that I could give you is Make me Want to Holler by Nathan McCall because it showed me something that I was never taught, actually, as a kid growing up, I was never taught what a black man is, and how beautiful a black man is, and how strong a black man is. But the literacy, the words that were in that book, showed me that somebody who has these idiosyncrasies about their life can turn out to be something, again, greater than what they were because they engaged themselves in life, in their community, in their surroundings, and took from it what they needed to take from it, not just what everybody else was telling them about it. So, it was vital, and now I feel like I can, I feel like instead of having a brain I feel like I have a mouse and a wheel turning constantly because I'm always thinking, I'm always, I go to bed thinking because I can't not think about what it must have been like to be on plantations and be on a ground where you just couldn't, you couldn't do what your heart and what your soul wanted to do, and that was to know something, to be something. And so, now that I have every opportunity at my finger tips, I can't sleep not thinking what I can do, not thinking about what I can learn, and not thinking about what I can read. I'm talking about it constantly. I keep it in my mouth every day. So, literacy is a part of my make-up, it's a part of my, the air that I breathe every day.

PART 2
>>INTERVIEWER: So now let's talk about your two sons, like how do you teach them?

>>ERICA COOPER: Well, actually to give you a good example, my younger son was partially deaf when he was born, and up until he was a little over a year old he never even said Mommy, because he couldn't hear. I could tell that he read lips because when I would say his name or when I would say something to him, he would hear sounds but it wasn't a distinct sound, so a lot of times I would have to kind of get into his face to talk to him. And he had some surgery and he hasn't stopped talking since. So I decided that because of my faith, because God gave my son another chance to be able to learn, that I wasn't going to stop him. So one thing that I, and this is something actually going on in my life right now, he's doing a book report at school because of it being black history month he's doing it on some inventors, and his teacher, and I understand because of the curriculum that's going on in the school systems today and what they have to go by, but she had said to me that she didn't want him to get books beyond his grade level to do his research on. And I was a little bit taken aback by that because I thought, you're limiting him from trying to know something bigger than what you say he can know. So, she told me that, I went to the college library and checked out a couple books and gave them to him anyway.

[Laughter]

>>ERICA COOPER:  And he has them on his desk, so, I kind of would like for them to tell me no because I don't think that's going to happen. But, so, I did decide that when they ask me something, when my children ask me something, I don't give them the short, Reader's Digest version answer, I explain and sometimes over-explain. But I do that because I feel that me, being their parent, that I would much rather them get the right answer and the long version answer than the short, wrong answer. And I just, I see who they are going to be, not because that's who I want them to be, but I see the greatness in them, not the specifics of what they're going to do with their lives because that's up to them, but I see the greatness that's in them. And so, I have to be able to entertain that and allow that to flourish in any way I possibly can. So, again, for somebody to tell my son, no, because you are only this, these are the only things you have available to you, and I say, okay, this is what you have to deal with but when you come home understand that this is just how things are set up, but it doesn't mean that's how things have to be. So, he's using the two books that I gave him to do his book report, so, and I showed him how to source them properly. So, even though that's not even a requirement to source them in the fifth grade, but I showed him how, showed him how to get the information and how to do bibliographical references for it. So, he will know even if they do not show him.

>>INTERVIEWER: Okay, thank you again.

>>ERICA COOPER: You're welcome.

>>INTERVIEWER: Can I ask you one question? Did you ever have any teachers along the way that helped you facilitate the literacy of your children? Some people that even have stood in the way of the literacy development of your children?

>>ERICA COOPER: Actually I did have one that, I had lots that were great as far as kind of giving that olive branch out and told me that I was good or I was great, or I was this or that, and that was well. But the one that I remember significantly, actually wasn't even a teacher, he was a guidance counselor in my high school right when I found out that I was going to be a mother. And I wish we was sitting in this room right now so I could talk to him, but he told me that he was not going to be able to, because I had decided that I was going to leave school for a little while because of my circumstances, just for a couple of months, but I would do work at home. And to him that was not acceptable, that when I did come back I would have to basically start my whole senior year over and continue from there. Even though I had a 3.9 grade average and I was set up to be the Salutatorian of the high school. I only had 40 some kids in my senior class, it was a real small school, and I was the only black person in the entire district. So I really felt nudged out based upon our conversation. And I told him that was unacceptable because I had been tutoring 7th and 8th graders and helping the teacher write their lesson plans for those specific kids I tutored because they were kids with learning disabilities, and I was helping them. And that was good enough for me to do all the while that I was obviously pregnant, up until my 7th and 8th month, and never missed a day of school. And even to know that that was okay for them to accept that type of help from me, but that they could not help me in return when I was doing all that was asked of me and above, was a little bit of a hard pill to swallow. So, I remember some words that I had for him when I left, I'd probably choose different words today now that I'm a little older, but I do remember one thing specifically that I did say to him and that was, "You'll need me before I need you." And that was just because I knew that he was purposefully, I felt, I shouldn't say I knew, I felt that he was purposefully trying to keep me from being successful, even a missed mine circumstance of being a teenage mother. So I had a lot of resentment, but what I'm proud of is that I took that resentment and I turned it into resilience. I turned it into, you're not going to tell me no, and you're not going to hold me back. So, I immediately, my son was three months old when I started my GED program. So, and I really haven't looked back from there.