November 27, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Hill area teacher keeps dreams alive for African immigrants
by BETSY SELF ELIJAH

Susannah Erinle, 58 (center), worked as an elementary school teacher for 25 years in Lagos, Nigeria, before before immigrating to the U.S. a decade ago. She is seen with daughters Bukky, 30 (left), and Tuyin, 23.

“Mom, let’s start college together and finish together,” 18-year-old Helen said to her mother Ruth Habtemichael this past year. Ruth, a 42-year-old single mom living in West Philadelphia, had worked three jobs to raise Helen and Helen’s 21-year-old sister Lula. Once both her daughters were college aged, Ruth, an immigrant from Eritrea in Northeast Africa, wasn’t sure what to do next. It was her daughters who told Ruth she should go back to school for an associate degree in nursing. And it’s her daughters who help Ruth with her homework and check on her daily. “If I take a test, they ask me what I got. They say, ‘You can’t hide from us. Make sure you get an A,’” she says.

Ruth is one of several adult students in the Learning Lab classes I teach as a Reading and Writing Specialist at Community College of Philadelphia. Though most of my students are teenagers who recently graduated from high school, it is the adults who returned to college after years and even decades of life experience who intrigue me. What made them return to school now? What is it like being in the classroom with people two or three times younger? What do they hope to gain from their college experience?

The curiosity of another of my adult students, Susannah Erinle, was piqued after her youngest daughter began taking biology classes at CCP. Susannah worked as an elementary school teacher for 25 years in Lagos, Nigeria, before immigrating to the United States a decade ago. A 58-year-old Northeast Philadelphia resident, Susannah says, “I love keeping myself busy, reading for focus and solving math problems. If I were home, I’d just be getting my pension, doing nothing and being bored. When your mind is active, you’re so happy.” Like Ruth, Susannah’s children enjoy giving back to the mother who helped them with their homework when they were kids. Susannah says, “They drive me to school and tell me to do my best. If there’s a vocabulary word I don’t know, my daughter will say an example in Yoruba, and then I’ll understand.”

Susannah teams up for study sessions with fellow adult students Loretta Carter, Connie Price and Marion Parks. Loretta returned to school to earn an associate degree in early childhood education in order to continue teaching. Like all of my adult students, she is driven by a passionate desire to help others, especially young people in her North Philadelphia neighborhood. Born and bred in Philadelphia, Loretta says, “God gave me this opportunity. Every time I think of the children, I have to do it. Kids can go out their doors and get drugs and guns but not get help with their homework. We can teach them to have self-esteem and give them a chance to be somebody.” Education for 50-year-old Loretta is definitely a family affair. Her daughter tutors her in math, computers and reading; her husband helps her pronounce words, and her mother takes care of the children as needed.

Before our twice weekly reading and writing Lab, I see Loretta sitting at a table outside of the classroom. She bends her head over a math book as she explains how to measure the side of a triangle to adult classmate Connie. After years motivating co-workers and friends to go back to school, Connie overcame her own voices of doubt from the past. An ex-husband repeatedly asked, “What you trying to go to school for, dummy?” and neighbors questioned why she would want to continue her education. Now Connie, a resident of East Oak Lane, has no problem being an “old-head in school with the younger folks” as she works toward an associate degree in business management.

Connie’s classmate Marion returned to school because, “The economy was about to break me. I had no skills or education to get a great job, to move beyond minimum wage. I wanted to enhance myself.” Marion, a 43-year-old life-time Philadelphian currently residing in West Philadelphia, is on a mission. A teenage mom who gave birth to her son when she was 13 years old, she says, “I really believe I can show younger students, don’t be like I was. I tell them I’m proud of you for being here. If young people don’t get it, we’re in trouble.”

Though my adult students find challenges in returning to school, all of them are confident about accomplishing their career goals. Ruth hopes to become an ultrasound nurse, a career that fits her desire to help others here in the U.S. as well as family members in Africa still struggling in the wake of the 1998-2000 Eritrean-Ethiopian War. Susannah plans to utilize her associate degree in accounting to work at the firm she believes her daughter will someday own. As a result of witnessing the abuse, rape and murder in her community, Loretta hopes to open an orphanage. Connie plans to open a salon. Marion dreams of managing her own rehabilitation business, helping young people, especially young mothers, plan their lives and make healthy decisions to deal with hurt, pain and anger.

This past year I experienced my own life change when I left a job in arts administration to return to my love of teaching and writing. I already had my degree, but the transition was nevertheless scary, uncomfortable and emotional. Like many of my students, I was fortunate to have loving support of family — in my case, my husband — to push me forward. I’m a generation or two younger than my students, but I can’t help but be inspired by how they’ve overcome so many obstacles and still contain all the hope and determination they need to achieve their dreams.

For information on attending classes at Community College of Philadelphia, visit www.ccp.edu or call 215-751-8230.

Chestnut Hill area resident, freelance writer and teacher Betsy Self Elijah serves as nonfiction editor for Quay, a literary journal, and has taught personal narrative writing workshops in schools and with organizations throughout Philadelphia.