Francie: Flying Over Educational Hoops

I am currently reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.


It is the story of Francie Nolan,the semi-autobiographical heroine, as she grows up in the teeming tenement neighborhoods of 1900's Brooklyn. I am connecting again and again with how she is learning through life and how these experiences shape who she is and will become. I also see a glimpse of the world in which new immigrants to America lived and how little they had. I see the author's view of the Catholic Church in those turbulent times.

And I see how the educational system was set up then and how Francie freed herself to fly above it.

In the spirit of my good friend, Charlotte Mason, I would like to narrate a part of Francie's life that hit home with me. The past few years, as I continue on this homeschool journey, the question has come before me more and more often: just what is education? What are my goals for my children? What are the goals of 'society' in education and are they the same as my goals? How do I discern this outside noise from what God wants for my children? What is the role of school and public school? Are my children gaining 'All They Need' learning through our lifestyle of interest-driven, conversation-fueled days?

The more I learn about other times and situations the more I see easy it is to be short-sightedly caught up in the here and now. Our own short histories, America's short attention span, our neighbors views, our schools systems, what we are told by 'experts' our children need, the latest 'push', be it college or private school or joining soccer teams and ballet classes.

Not that any of these things are inherently bad . But where do they fit with where God wants our children? How do we separate?

Reading about others and the times they lived in has helped me stand back and disengage from those voices that sound so intelligent and reasonable, but may be false.

Francie's story was one more help toward that goal. Here it is, in my words.

Francie lived with her family in a Brooklyn tenement in the early 1900's. Her father, a handsome, singing Irishman was all charm but could not hold a job due to his alcoholism. Francie's mother wanted an education for her children. What they saw in the slums was those with no education got no where and scrubbed floors for the rest of their life, as her mother was doing. Education was the mantra, the savior, the panacea to this life of drudgery.

Francie went to grade school and did well. It was a public school and not perfect. Some were far worse. But these children would not have learned to read and write at home. Survival was key and many parents didn't have the basic skills to pass on to their children.

Francie's mom did homeschool in a way. She could at least read. At the advice of her Francie's illiterate grandmother, every night from the time they were babies, the mother read them a page from Shakespeare and the Bible. Every night. At times none of the three of them understood it, but they continued this way until her children were teens.

When Francie graduated from grade school, her father died and there was literally not enough money for them to survive. Francie's mother asked her to work. It would be temporary, but they needed the money.

Francie lied on her work papers claiming to be 16 when she was but 14 and got a job. She was a 'reader' for a bureau. She read up to 180 newpapers a day, looking for certain clients' interests, cutting out the articles. Others then pasted them on pages to be sent to the clients. She was the best worker in the office full of older women, because from the time she was little she loved to read.

Francie did this for her family, but was devastated. She wanted an education. To her an education meant her mother's idea and goals. Graduate grade school. Graduate high school. Then College. That was the focus and the goal. To be not only the first in her family ever to get a grade school diploma, but to go to college. Francie wanted that very badly. She wanted out of this life of desperation and poverty.

After a year, the money situation got better and Francie's mother said she could try high school now. Perhaps work at night and go to school during the day.

But Francie said no.

Francie told her mother she had been reading all about the world through thousands of newspapers for months. She had her own opinions about everything: Prohibition, the upcoming war in Europe, Tammany Hall. How could she return to the classroom with a teacher who would read out of dull books and ask that Francie parrot her ideas back to her? Francie knew what school was. It was too late. It was too late to go back.

But, Francie's mother fretted. To make it to college, you MUST go back to high school and graduate. That is how it is done.

Francie knew there must be a better way.

As she read a local paper she saw an advertisement for a college in Brooklyn that offered classes to working people. She called on them and got the schedule and fees.
She filled out the application.

In the spaces that asked for her previous places of grade and high school, she thought and moment and wrote "Privately Educated."

It was true.

They accepted her and she began college at age 15.

This told me that 100 years ago there were the same expectations, system and hoops set up for people to go through to be 'educated'. There is at times a place for public education. It also told me that the term 'educated' was and still is thrown around rather loosely. It helped me see, too, that people rely on these 'systems' that are set in place as the yellow brick road to a good life. And, sometimes there is a better, different way.

What better access is there to learning than a home that has a positive environment for learning? Charlotte Mason recommends a supportive emotional environment as well as physical environment where great ideas abound. Lots of chances to explore and learn, talk and discern. Today most all of us have good libraries and the Internet. Add an interested parent and we have the ideal place to educate.

I also think it interesting that Charlotte Mason was dealing with a similar situation in England when she wrote about education for parents. Many of the children she knew were shut up in dull schools and were treated badly and of the lower class of coal miners and the like. She knew they all had a spark within.

Betty Smith showed me Francie of 1915.

She learned how to fly over the hoops and ignite the spark she had within.

Ok.. now to go finish the book!