Intellectual Self-Portrait

Abstract

Even though I grew up in a family of educators (my mother and father were both principals and an older sister was an elementary school teacher) I had no early interest in entering the education profession. Nevertheless, growing up in this family environment and attending segregated schools in the South made me keenly aware of educational issues and inequities at an early age. Further, having been assigned outdated textbooks with no remaining spaces for entering my name, taking science classes with less lab equipment than I had in my Gilbert’s home chemistry sets, taking PE classes and playing varsity basketball on outdoor courts, and generally being educated in inferior facilities provided me with an experiential awareness of educational inequality under de jure segregation that left me feeling cheated.