2007 UC Davis Fall Convocation

Convocation remarks

Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef's introduction

Our next speaker is Mertie Shelby. For more than 40 years, Mertie has helped to prepare Sacramento children to succeed in life by giving them not just the knowledge but the confidence they need. Twenty-five of those years were spent in the classroom, 15 in administration — including a time as principal of one of our partner schools, Father Keith B. Kenny elementary school in Oak Park. Her positive influence is also felt widely throughout the community’s professional, civic and religious organizations. Mertie?

By Mertie Shelby

One of the most cherished memories of my childhood includes sitting on a little stool as my mom braided my hair and told me of her childhood on the farm.

Her parents were share croppers in Mississippi, so the opportunity she was given to go to the city and complete 9th grade was a huge deal. This 9th-grade education at what was called the normal school was paramount to an undergraduate degree for African Americans or so-called colored girls of her day.

With the education she received, she was able to go back to the Delta and teach in a one-room schoolhouse. Today, we would call it a multi-level interdisciplinary classroom.

To prepare ourselves to facilitate instruction in this way we would have to have formal training or special expertise in differentiated instruction. However, the stories I heard about this configuration of multiple grades in a one-room schoolhouse came from an 8th-grade scholar who was allowed to go to the city for 9th grade.

Hearing my mom talk about the relationship of the older children in her class to the younger scholars gave me a sense of cooperative learning groups. This strategy became a powerful teaching tool not during the '80s but really during the era of the one-room schoolhouse.

Learners were expected to collaborate and share the knowledge. The teacher worked first with the students who grasp information or skills easily and they in turn passed it down to the next group.

This strategy helped to facilitate one teacher working with large groups, 30 or more students in multiple grades in the same room. The collective, teacher and students in the room, gave you special attention until you knew what they knew.

My mother wove the stories of the everyday triumphs and trials in the classroom so convincingly that they replaced the Goldilocks and other so-called classics for me.

She was a great storyteller. While I don't recall reveling in the desire to teach in that kind of a school, I do remember vicariously enjoying the atmosphere and believing that one day I, too, could become a teacher.

My journey has been a much different one, however I do recall the joy she felt when I decided to become a teacher. I knew I could do this because I had a desire, a role model, and was expected and inspired to facilitate learning first and foremost by my mother, Mrs. Susie Greer.

The 25 years I spent in the classroom, grades 1-6, at Bret Harte Elementary School have afforded me the opportunity to see young people begin their formal education and actually enter their careers.

Every birthday or holiday, I'm reminded of the special relationship I had with the Fisher family. Maisha Fisher, a '94 grad of UC Davis, and her brother Demany, also a grad of UC Davis, were not only my students but my mentees.

Maisha did her student teaching at Father Keith B. Kenny where I was principal and distinguished herself as a master teacher in only a few years.

She then matriculated at Stanford University obtaining a master's degree and then on to UC Berkeley for her doctorate.

Today, Maisha is a professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga. She is a product of UC Davis you can be proud of, and I am, indeed, proud to say she acknowledges the role our relationship played in her life.

Not to be outdone, Damany is completing his doctorate this year at UC Berkeley. While I don't take credit for their successes, I do share in the joy of their accomplishments and the part my relationship with these two students played.

Lastly, as principal of Father Keith B. Kenny, I had the pleasure of working in partnership with the outreach department of UC Davis to inspire students to take a nine-year journey of preparation to enter college.

We designed a curriculum called a Reservation for College that would demystify college for them and their families.

This successful program beginning in fourth grade would expose them to college life, the necessity to become educated and its relevance to their later life.

Today I am proud to say there are new Aggies on campus because of the Reservation for College program.

You see, success in life is finding — and being — the inspiration.

Mertie Shelby is a Sacramento educator and former principal of Father Keith B. Kenny Elementary School.

Last updated Oct. 1, 2007

Questions or comments? Contact Susanne Rockwell, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-2542