Oral History and News Story: Alice Reese

After 37 years of being an educator in the midwest, Alice Reese shares her journey as a student bouncing back and forth from a segregated to non-segregated school to a teacher who taught at three different institutes throughout her career.

Though she initially never wanted to become a teacher, Reese lived a fulfilling life as an educator with goals set to inspire and encourage every student she had in her classroom.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Reese, born in New Orleans, Louisiana, recalled being in elementary school when the education systems were desegregating in her hometown. She was the daughter of a railroad worker who was forced to move often between Louisiana and St. Louis, Missouri, until she and her siblings were in the years of junior high school and made Saint Louis their final destination. The desegregation program in St. Louis was the nation’s longest and largest program. Reese and her siblings were the first black children in their school to attend a private Catholic junior high school around 1956. Apart from the schools overcoming segregation, public schools in St. Louis, Missouri, were still segregated due to location. Nonetheless, Reese and her siblings had a different experience than most at an all white Catholic school.

“It was an interesting thing but it went smoothly. We didn’t really encounter any opposition to us. I didn’t notice racial discrimination even though there were probably people that acted standoffish,” Reese said.

Reese credits having her siblings with her throughout school always made the transitions better and said that her experience was a special case and not the reality of what tons of other black children were going through.

FIRST DIVE INTO CAREER

Reese graduated from Truman University in Kirksville, Missouri, in 1966 cum laude with a B.A. in English with no intentions on becoming a teacher. She was encouraged by her pastor to apply for an open position in a Catholic elementary school. After she completed her one year contract, she decided that teaching wasn’t what she wanted to do professionally. Reese had a successful career in real estate for 10 years until she had children of her own that she wanted to spend more time with. She began to look for a change and found one in teaching.

“When my kids were small, I decided to give up the real estate business so I could be home on nights and weekends and be able to spend more time with my own children. I decided to give teaching another chance and see what that was like, and I never left,” Reese said. “I went back to teaching in 1981 and stayed until 2015.”

Reese bounced around two other Catholic schools before settling at Loyola Academy where spent most of her teaching career at.

GOALS FOR THE STUDENTS

Reese had goals that she wanted to achieve by the end of her career. Some of those goals were preparing her students for challenges that may arise, making them better informed about the world they live in and how to cope with the many challenges of being African American young men. She was proud to say she achieved those goals.

“The majority of my students were African American and I felt a particular responsibility towards them because of that. I know the challenges that face them having raised two African American boys of my own,” Reese said.

Saying her goodbyes on graduation days is what Reese describes as the most rewarding feeling of her career knowing that she taught her students to be ready for their next chapters in their lives.  

“Primarily, I wanted to help my students become better informed about the world they live in. To know their value and worth and the responsibility to help others,” Reese said.

Although she may not recognize every student whom she’s ever taught after numerous of years, Reese is filled with joy when an alum comes back to visit her.

OPINION ON BETSY DEVOS

U.S. Secretary of Education, Betsy Devos is constantly under scrutiny for the decisions that she has made since being an elected member of the U.S. cabinet in 2017 by President Donald Trump. Reese pinpoints how she believes Devos is unfit in her position and how much of a mockery she is making public education.

“One thing education does not need is someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. I don’t think she has any idea of what is really needed as far as education in this country. It is a shame and the people that are going to be hurt are the children,” Reese said.

Devos has expressed an interest in providing teachers with the right to bear arms within their classrooms. After many recent school shootings around the country, placing more guns within schools is one of her possible solutions. Reese isn’t in agreement with those beliefs.

“If I were still teaching today and someone told me that we’re going to have armed teachers in the classroom, I would have probably retired early. The answer is not arming teachers,” Reese said.

FUTURE STATE OF EDUCATION

Devos has campaigned multiple times for private schooling becoming more popular. Her focus has been to move more students into private schools rather than more into the struggling public school system. Kayla Clay, junior at Truman University double majoring in history and secondary education is aspiring to return to St. Louis and become a history teacher post graduation. Clay, a future educator, is not satisfied with the underappreciated and misprioritized state in which the current education system lies.

“With budget cuts taking place in the public school funding and inadequate training amongst teachers and faculty, kids are not being given the proper means to succeed academically,” Clay said.  

Although the U.S. public school education has had many ups and downs for the past several years, Clay holds Devos accountable for the the state of education and is not a supporter of hers and said she is not comfortable with Devos holding her position in the White House.

“I do not believe that she has the professional or social background/criteria to determine where government money should go in the education department,” Clay said. “She is robbing children of a fair and adequate learning environment across the country in all classrooms, whilst sectioning off schools to certain areas at the same time.”

EVOLUTION OF EDUCATION

During the time Alice Reese was getting her education, desegregation of schools was a highly controversial topic within the citizens of the United States. Today, it’s gun control and safety within a school that many people have opinions on. Education in the United States has and will continue to be an important asset that affects the entire nation. Reese is proof of how far education can lead, but the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, is one of the many examples of

how much more America has to go and the protests that stem from tragedy demonstrate what needs to do about it.