Linda Alston, a peer teacher evaluator for Denver Public Schools, is also a master teacher of young children. She has won the Milken National Educator Award, the Walt Disney American Teacher Award, and the first $100,000 Kinder Excellence in Teaching Award. Alston has traveled to Sierra Leone as a Fulbright Scholar, organized six inner-city Montessori Child Development Centers, and is an educational consultant, motivational speaker, and Master Life Coach. She is the author of the bestselling Why We Teach: Learning, Laughter, Love, and the Power to Transform Lives. Alston recently wrote an essay for our Open a World of Possible initiative, which we've repurposed here on the blog. The full version is also available in our Open a World of Possible book, which you can download for free here.
Mama drove off into the balmy summer night with Lil’ Alice and me in the back seat, heads, shoulders, and thighs stuck together like old family photos, reading Soul Confessions. It was a two-hour drive back to Natchitoches from Shreveport. Lil’ Alice and I waited patiently between highway lights. In the brief time the light shone on the printed page, we read frantically of love, passion, romance, and broken hearts only to have the page fade to black again at the juiciest passages.
My parents were members of many different religious faiths through the years. The common thread that ran through them all was a Puritan view of sexuality. The silence of my parents about sex launched me into a kind of literacy cycle where my number one genre was adolescence.
I subscribed to Teen magazine. I read about other teenagers and the trials and tribulations they were having with their parents, teachers, boyfriends, and younger siblings.
The desire, the need to read had taken on a practical purpose. Reading was opening up a world of information that I desperately wanted even while all the adults around me were determined to keep it from me.
The Farmer’s Almanac said that I was born under the sign of Cancer. I liked rich foods, home, art, and would suffer from gastritis. But the important morsel was that I was compatible with boys born under the sign of Pisces. Pop Monroe was a Pisces.
The era was the ’60s and it was a great time to be in love with Pop. The lyrics of the popular songs during that time are what sparked my interest in reading poetry. This was the era of the Supremes, Smokey Robinson, the Miracles, and the Four Tops. I listened to words like:
As pretty as you are
You know you could have been a flower...
— The Temptations
This music inspired me to write love poetry of my own to Pop Monroe. During this time, I started reading all kinds of poetry. I read Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and, of course, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Pop was always very proud of my writings. He would show my poems to all his friends and they were always impressed.
This literacy cycle, my quest for adolescent understanding, continued through high school. Ninth grade I remember as the year of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Until this day I don’t know where the illicit book came from, I never found out who brought it to school. It circulated around to all my classmates under a brown paper grocery bag cover.
I was still reading to try and understand these tinglings and new sensations I was feeling that I called love.
During this time, we attended a fundamentalist Pentecostal church. At a revival one summer night, I took one look at Joe Green and Pop Monroe was history. Joe’s grandmother was the Church Mother. This was the highest office a woman could hold in our church—it was the female equivalent to the pastor. I taught Sunday school to a group of young children. I was probably the most well-read teenaged Sunday school teacher in Louisiana. Why? Because I had to impress Joe Green. After all, I was in love with him.
At the end of Sunday school, all the groups would review their lessons for the entire church. The pastor, Elder Feltus, always commented on how well my group did in the review. I would smile and glance over at Joe and his grandmother, Mother Norman, for their approval. And it was a good thing they approved. Little did they know that I had read all week to prepare for that Sunday’s lesson.
We were encouraged to read the Bible every day. I enjoyed reading the Psalms of David in the Old Testament. I liked the sound and flow of the words.
There was a time during Elder Feltus’ sermon when he would request that someone from the audience stand up and read a scripture aloud to support what he was preaching. He would say, “Someone get me the second chapter of Acts.” Then he would continue to preach, giving the member time to find the passage. This practice helped me read with speed and learn the organizational layout of the Bible so I could find the scripture first. When I found it, I would stand up quickly. This let everyone else know that I would be the reader. It was competitive. Then Elder Feltus would say, “Okay, read, girl!” I always felt good going home from church when I had read a scripture for Elder Feltus.
Today, reading is an exquisite joy in my life... a sweet, rich indulgence that feeds me at a deep, soul-ular level. As a Master Life Coach, I still read religious and spiritual books to continue my own personal evolution and to empower others. And I’m head over heels in love—with Edward! He sings old skool Temptations songs with a tribute group so the music will not die. He writes poetry and songs about how much he loves me. One of our favorite pastimes is reading and discussing books together while snuggled up on the sofa and sharing a bowl of popcorn. Edward is a Taurus, not a Pisces. But I haven’t laid eyes on a Farmer’s Almanac since I left Louisiana many years ago.
As an avid reader, I know how to pick through books and choose passages that I feel embrace my truth. Somewhere, in all those forbidden texts, a protagonist must have told me to never give up on true love... maybe it was Lady Chatterley!
