My Weary Query

I’ve rarely put myself in the shoes of another to the extent I did when reading Push. It had to be the deeply honest, simple, and personal prose that made it impossible for me not to connect with the narrator, Precious. Her story reminded me of the power of personal narrative, that telling our stories can be a way of healing, developing voice, understanding the self, conveying self to others, and finding a community in which one’s voice matters. Many times throughout the text, I linked the power of personal narrative to Friere’s notion of conscientization, but mostly I was drawn into Precious’ story so completely I found that being cognizant of my reading process was a difficult undertaking.

To some degree, location and time mattered. When I began reading the book, I was at an elementary school in between observations of apprentice teachers. The coordinator for our cohort was also on site, so I found myself somewhat tense. Should he find me reading, I’d feel obligated to give an account of my time and my observations. I knew he’d rather me help the apprentice teachers monitor children during the reading times, which is what I normally do when I’m in between observations. So I felt uneasy while reading on-site, but then I’d think, “If he were in my place, he’ d be multitasking, too.” At the school, I found that I was concerned with pacing my reading. I’d be like, “Okay, I’ll read until the end of page such and such, then I’ll do something else on-site that makes me look productive.”

While reading, certain people in my life came to mind. Precious reminded me of a little Black girl, Tea’, who I’ve worked with the past few weeks. Both have spunk, and impatience for people who ask known-answer questions. Both respond to indirect speech acts with frustration, and are uncooperative when people don’t say what they mean. “Tea’’”, is like that,” I thought. “She has no patience for adults who don’t deal with her squarely.”

Sometimes the book made me reflect on my practices as a teacher—specifically, I thought, “In what ways am I like the teachers Precious is fed-up with? In what ways does my privilege cause me to be unresponsive or unsympathetic to underprivileged children?” So there was some sense of comparing myself with other educators portrayed in the book.

In general, I’d a hard time separating my educator-self from the reading, so issues in education were salient, and caught my attention. Some of the circumstances Precious faced at school stood out as possible topics for a class I’m teaching this semester. When Precious starts writing under Ms. Rain’s tutelage, I thought, “This is an excellent example of why we should value meaning over convention when children are learning to write” and I began wondering if an excerpt from this book might incite class discussion around invention vs. convention.

Other moments made me think of issues that some apprentice teachers are facing. For instance, when Precious shouted at her math teacher, I began thinking that discipline problems are often the result of deeper issues lurking beneath the surface. For example, Precious talks back to her math teacher because she doesn’t want to reveal that she can’t read. “What a strong teaching point for pre-service teachers,” I thought to myself. So being a teacher affected how I responded to the book; I found it hard to read without envisioning activities that could help me clarify concepts related to emergent literacy and student behavior.

After fifty pages or so, I became so immersed in the book that I just wanted to know what would happen next. The book became a deeply emotional experience. Sometimes short, simple sentence would make me cry: “Push, Precious, you are going to have to push.” Tears came whenever Precious relayed optimism and self-perseverance right after conveying accounts so horrible, I wondered how she could go on living. Then, I’d laugh at her frankness: “I pretend he [the math teacher] is my husband and we live together.” But mostly, this book made me feel terribly privileged, and made me understand that I will never know what is going on in a person’s life, so I better not be so quick to judge.

Overall, I’d an aesthetic stance when reading, particularly because the book evoked in me an emotional response, and got me contemplating the enormous power and responsibility adults have in raising and educating a child. It also helped me see beyond myself, and more clearly into the life of another. Precious reminded me that even in the darkest hour, in the midst of evil, there’s still good in the world. I found that comforting, and took strength from her ability to keep pushing even despite deep wounds, and a future that will no doubt be difficult, but at least endured with love for herself and others.