The Teachings of the Cotton Field

In Lillie Gayle Smith’s Unearthing Hidden Literacy: Seven Lessons I Learned in a Cotton Field, Smith talks about the valuable lessons she learned by working in the cotton field at her aunt’s house.  It was not until she entered a “Black Women’s Literacy” class that she noticed she had gained so much in life from working on the cotton field.  Smith states, “having picked cotton was something I wanted to forget, not extrapolate lessons from” (Smith 37), she was afraid to share it because she didn’t believe it had any relevance to who she was in life.  As she began to talk to her professors and classmates about her experiences, she learned that she actually learned of important lessons from picking cotton, like money management.  She even began to put money in a bank account because her mother doubled every dollar she made.  At that time she believed things like that were “important grownup activities” (Smith 46), but in the long run it actually helped her out because when she entered the sixth grade she had to purchase her own school books.

            By Smith thinking back on her childhood she began to discover her own literacy and connect her past with her present.  In her “Black Women’s Literacy” class she was challenged to think back and see how her ancestors picked cotton without a choice and how they went through multiple struggles to give her opportunities.  She also learned that in order to be willing to share her experience she needed a professor and community that “respected and validated knowledge acquired beyond the walls of the academy” (Smith 38), meaning that the environment needs to be welcoming to need ideas and viewpoints.  Smith experienced the opposite of this when she was enrolled in a male professor’s class, who praised the male students, but never the female students.  The female students began to get tired off this so they dropped the course showing a form “of resistance to an educational setting” (Smith 39).

            Smith learned a so much from picking cotton which contributed to her literacy.  She began to the impact those days had on the decisions she made in her life.  She began to have a better appreciation of those days, therefore having a better appreciation of who she is today.   By her taking that class she rediscovers who she is and continues to grow for the better.

Work Cited:

Smith, Lillie Gayle. “Unearthing Hidden Literacy: Seven Lessons I Learned in a Cotton Field.” Readers of the Quilt: Essays on Being Black, Female, and Literate. Ed: JoAnne Kilgour Dowdy. Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, Inc, 2005. 41. Print