In her ninth year at Creek teaching English, Erika Deshay-Lowenkron sees the rarity and personal importance of the new class she is teaching, African American Literature.
“Growing up, I didn’t have any class like this, and so anytime I wanted to learn about African American Literature, I kinda had to do it on my own,” Deshay-Lowenkron said.
Deshay-Lowenkron is excited for class, and the opportunity to teach a subject she has been in love with since high school. She never got the opportunity to do anything like this class when she was a student.
“I’m making sure I give a good background and history that students can understand, so that when we read something, they understand why a writer would have written that at the time,” Deshay-Lowenkron said.
With a new curriculum on her schedule, Deshay-Lowenkron was given a lot of freedom to find what she wanted to teach and the class being only a semester long, Deshay-Lowenkron had to figure out how to get through as much as she could in only five months.
“There are so many things I can choose, and the hard part was, narrowing it down to what I can fit into a semester,” Deshay-Lowenkron said. “So, it was exciting but a little bit nerve wracking.”
African American literature covers literature from Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, and even the modern day, allowing students to have a sight of Black literature from slavery onwards.
“I’m taking the class to learn about the history, and the culture, as it’s important to me and something we don’t really talk about in other classes,” Junior Alana McCurty said.
Deshay-Lowenkron, will occasionally meet with Vernal Pope, the former teacher of African American Literature, who retired last year after . Pope is not only a published poet and a mentor of hers, but a friend since Deshay-Lowenkron came to Creek. They meet to talk about art, new poetry, and the class.
Pope, who taught the class for 13 years, bonded with and supported students in and out of the class and taught African American Literature with one motive in mind,
“African American Literature is really a class of how you treat people you know regardless of color,” Pope said. Via telephone interview “It made us look inwardly, do I have any biases or any prejudices or stereotypes?”
As Pope taught English for thirty-one years, Pope gained a legendary reputation as a great teacher, and someone many would like to have on their schedule
“Not only did she push me to be a better person, but you know, pushed me to be better in the classroom too,” Senior TI Umu-Cais said.
When Deshay-Lowenkron was given the African American Literature class, she understood the pressure from students expecting Pope, but just as much, the political head that she is stepping into, with an executive order in Jan. this year focusing on diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) rollbacks within schools, according to NPR.
When Deshay-Lownkron was asked about a certain pressure from changes within schools and the landscape across America,
“Sometimes it feels scary when I’m not in the room, and when I’m in the room, it feels great and I feel surrounded by support,” Deshay-Lowenkron said. “Even though other people think it’s bad, I think it’s good for us to know all the things that happened, to listen to other perspectives and to read as much as we can from all kinds of people.”
