Maternal Education as Empowerment

Not everyone has a pleasant introduction to school, but sometimes all it takes is one or two good educators to create a lifelong positive learning experience. I was fortunate because my initiation into public education was supplemented by a family tree full of professional educators. My mother was a public school teacher, as was my aunt. Their mother was a school aid. They all worked in the Bronx for many years. Upon moving to the suburbs, my mother got a position as a speech therapist at a school in Westchester County. She retired prior to the 2020 school year, which turned out to be impeccable and fortuitous timing.

This post rounds out my series of posts in line with Teachers Appreciation Week. It is also a post relative to Mothers Day. I think both of these aforementioned celebrations are apt to honor the most important maternal figures and teachers in my life. Not only did these three individuals guide me through the traditional schooling process, but they encouraged and facilitated my passion for learning through the arts.

Although there is now Universal 3-K schooling in New York, that was not the case in 1987 when I was three years old. At that time I had to wait one more year to enroll in Pre-K and become an official public school student. However, I was still able to get a primer on the public education system at the age of three by visiting P.S. 105, an elementary school in the Bronx neighborhood of Pelham Parkway where my mother and grandmother worked. My childhood memories are often hazy but I remember this visit quite well. It was fun for me to walk through the halls of the school. The elementary school-aged students were a lot bigger than me, but I recall how they welcomed me as a peer and were eager to show me what they were learning. I even made a baseball themed clock in shop class. Having three very influential and nurturing figures ease me into the school environment impacted how comfortable I felt in schools. It also had a clear effect on my passion for teaching and learning.

Sarah Jean Baker, a professor of childhood education and family studies notes that, “teaching is often seen as a maternal, female role because of the historical conditions teaching developed within” (quoted in Moore, 2020). In an article “Teacher/Mothers: Effects of a Dual Role,” author Margareta A. Claesson (1989) explains that, “teachers/mothers are responsible for the growth and development of small children during most of their waking hours. Their dual role often involves conflict, stress and ambiguity. It also provides, however, unique opportunities for positive transfer of learning and experience between the professional and private lives of these women.”

I have witnessed this firsthand. My mother was tasked with ensuring the well-being and development of hundreds of students in school everyday. This was parallel to the enduring amount of care and support she provided for me and my brother at home. In essence, my mother’s work schedule as an educator was never finished. Anyone who has taught knows that teachers work far beyond their official scheduled hours. They plan lessons, grade papers and further their craft by attending their own version of school in the form of professional development. Alongside the role of being a parent or guardian it can be hard to find moments where the separation between their personal and private lives are apparent. I am grateful for this commitment made by my mother, aunt, grandmother and everyone else who has had similar positions as a guardian and educator.

Many artworks that are about motherhood also offer pedagogical insight into the roles of women in society’s overall maintenance and development. I previously mentioned a few examples, such as Angélique du Coudray’s eighteenth century obstetric phantom, La Machine; which is as much of a work of art as it was a teaching model that enabled midwives to simulate a variety of birthing issues (see: “Abrégé de l’art des accouchements/The Art of Obstetrics”). Sculptural forms like du Coudray’s are still being made with the impetus to raise awareness around women’s health. One example is artist Michelle Browder’s Mothers of Gynecology, a public artwork located in Montgomery, Alabama. The sculpture depicts three enslaved women named Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey. These women underwent horrific and inhumane medical experiments performed during the 1840s by Dr. James Marion Sims, who has been considered a forefather in the field of gynecology.

Browder asserts that her sculpture is “a living memorial to women that were sterilized, and basically tortured in our country” (quoted in Pontone, 2023). Modern medical history has a barbaric legacy of exploiting the bodies of Black individuals. This maleficence is not just relegated to the past. Contemporary examples of Black women receiving inequitable and negligent treatment during medical care are well documented (see: Williams and Rucker, 2000; Krieger et al., 2017; and Lockhart, 2018).

The surrounding area near where Mothers of Gynecology is installed is part of a public educational initiative called More Up. The mission of More Up is to reveal previously underrepresented and repressed narratives of individuals like Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey. More Up is creating a campus which will contain the Mothers of Gynecology Health and Wellness Museum and Clinic. This facility will support educational initiatives raising awareness around providing more equal, equitable and social justice driven medical care for underserved individuals. The museum and clinic will also offer professional development and resources for maternal healthcare providers. The site where this expansion will occur (33 S. Perry Street) has profound cultural relevance because it was where Sims performed his medical experiments more than a century and a half ago.

In addition to establishing a brick and mortar space, this Mothers Day was a symbolic moment for Browder to debut a mobile health clinic that will provide maternal healthcare treatment to communities with historically limited access to this type of care. She will be traveling the United States with a team consisting of a doula, a midwife and an obstetrician-gynecologist.

Browder’s socially engaged project highlights utilizing art as a form of interpersonal and environmental nurturing. I mentioned several other artists who do this well in a post titled “Utilization of Artists and Art in Societal and Environmental Maintenance.” That post was inspired by social reformer and influential public administrator Jane Addams’ 1907 essay, “Utilization of Women in City Government.”

Being nurtured and exposed to profound moments of education and culture through the loving actions of my mother, aunt and grandmother also supports Addams’ early twentieth century thesis regarding how women-centered homemaking, educating and artisan labor should be viewed upon as tenets of a model, well functioning society.

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References, Notes, Suggested Reading:

Claesson, Margareta A., and Richard A. Brice. “Teacher/Mothers: Effects of a Dual Role.” American Educational Research Journal, vol. 26, no. 1, 1989, pp. 1–23. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1162867.

Krieger, Nancy et al. “Breast Cancer Estrogen Receptor Status According to Biological Generation: US Black and White Women Born 1915-1979.” American journal of epidemiology vol. 187,5 (2018): 960-970. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29036268/

Lockhart, P.R. “What Serena Williams’s scary childbirth story says about medical treatment of black women,” Vox, 11 January, 2018. https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/1/11/16879984/serena-williams-childbirth-scare-black-women

Moore, Sydni. “Increasing awareness: The Dissonance of Motherhood as a Teacher,” Missouri State College of Education News, 18 September 2020. https://blogs.missouristate.edu/education/2020/09/18/motherhood-as-a-teacher/

Pontone, Maya. “On Mother’s Day, Giving the Gift of Women’s Health,” Hyperallergic, 14 May 2023. https://hyperallergic.com/822076/on-mothers-day-giving-the-gift-of-womens-health/

Williams, D R, and T D Rucker. “Understanding and addressing racial disparities in health care.” Health care financing review vol. 21,4 (2000): 75-90. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4194634/