Appalachian Opportunity

The message arrived in my email spam file and I almost deleted it until I noticed it had an edu—education--extension. Professor Marilyn Brown of Lees College in Eastern Kentucky has found my essays about Appalachia on my blog on my blog, Mouth of the Holler, and wanted to use them in her Appalachian Studies class. My essays are enthusiastic about Appalachian characteristics: people who are hard working and funny; dedicated to family and land. As the semester progressed, she invited me to read and speak to her class.

 

Professor Brown’s class was mixed ages—18 through 50—and all were local. I asked them what they had been discussing about Appalachia. They first tackled stereotypes, the way many outside the region think of us: our dialects and a few unflattering and untrue images, stereotypes we’ve dealt with all our lives.

 

I felt empathy for these college students as I have faced my own challenges in receiving higher degrees, not beginning college until I was 36. In Appalachia, going to college still represents a challenge in terms of accessibility and affordability. And then there’s the old specter of leaving the area to find employment after the degree, which means leaving family and friends.

 

I read an essay to them about how my parents had not had the opportunity to complete high school but they had encouraged me to do much more. I never dreamed I’d one day earn two masters degrees and be teaching college courses. When I’d finished, I looked up to breath-held silence. They told me of their similar struggles.

 

After class, I went to lunch with the professor and a couple students. One student was an energetic woman in her early 40s and in college for the first time. Needing to return to work, she grabbed her bill. With tears in her eyes she said, “I’m just like you. I see that you have made it. That means I can too. You are my new hero.” I sat with a forkful of mashed potatoes suspended half way to my mouth, surprised—and humbled—by her words.  

 

The strange thing is, I had been thinking the same thing about Professor Brown. To have one’s writing used in a class as study material seems an impossible dream. Yet, she took the time and made the effort to reach out to me. Of course I would come speak to her class. It makes me shudder to think I almost deleted that email.

 

In that class room, I watched the fearful expressions, heard the doubt in their voices: am I going to make it? Will I do better than my parents? One student asked: Do you think if the rest of the world were Appalachian it’d be better off? I told him a resounding yes. While we struggle as any humans, we do work hard, we are blessed with a sense of humor, we are dedicated to family and land. Maybe one more important quality is our empathy, our willingness to reach out to one another.

 

Comments

[Carla Thomas Mcclure]

This event is a good reminder that it's possible to make a positive difference in others' lives simply by sharing our own stories and experiences. Good for you for putting yourself out there--and good for Professor Brown for having the insight to invite you to her classroom. With all the negative and depressing headlines in the news these days, it's good to read about people who are creating rather than destroying.

[Isaac Hollon]

I remember that I was in that class, you explained it perfectly.