2nd Blog Assignment: Warriors Don't Cry chapter 6 discussion question

Chapter 6 discussion question: With Melba's mother Lois being a school teacher, why do you think that she allowed Melba to stay out of school for such a long time in waiting to attend Central High rather than just sending her back to attend Horace Mann?

Melba's mother Lois was faced with many conflicts when it came to the issue of Melba attending Central High. Not only did Lois' thoughts represent those of a concerned mother, but her occupation as a school teacher must have made an impact on how she handled the situation in front of her. Chapter 6 of Warriors Don't Cry marks a period in waiting, in which Melba must sit patiently while the issues of integrating Central High are worked through. During this limbo period, Melba's family is caught in the middle of a tremendous amount of danger. Not only is Melba's family under constant threats, but Melba is missing many days worth of school through the entire process. It would have been very easy for Melba's family to decide to take her out of Central High and send her back to Horace Mann, but they rejected that idea. Many would think that as a school teacher, Mother Lois would be opposed to letting her daughter miss so much school, so she would enroll her back into Horace Mann just to keep her educated but this was not the case. Obviously a concerned mother would want to keep her child out of danger, but the strong personalities of this family would not allow themselves to give up in this fight. As a teacher, mother Lois understood the importance of education, and more importantly the importance of equal education. She knew that by sending her daughter back to Horace Mann, she would just be contributing to the halt in the integration process. While it must have been hard, mother Lois knew that it was important to allow her daughter to be the one to begin the wave of integration even if it meant danger to the family. This shows that mother Lois as a teacher truly values education. Much like many of the articles we read in class, mother Lois understands how it is important for teachers tho cater to the abilities and backgrounds of all students. It is not acceptable to let a student just give up if they don't quite seem to "fit in" with the rest of the class. It is the responsibility of the teacher to account for all the differences within the classroom and to accept these challenges as they come along. While mother Lois probably did not know if this would be the case for the teachers at Central High, she realized that integrating the school would be a good opportunity for this to start and that if she did not allow her daughter to take a stand, the quality of education for African Americans would never reach its full potential. Clearly, education was very important to this family and they were not willing to just sit back and allow African Americans to be provided with inferior education to whites. While mother Lois seemed to have received one of the best educations possible for an African American woman at that time, she knew there was still so much more to be gained in the schooling of African Americans. With education being so influential on the success of their family already, Lois as a school teacher had to put her concerned mother emotions aside in order to make an impact for all African Americans of the future.