Deborah Hicks: "The Road Out: A Teacher's Odyssey In Poor America"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-03-12/deborah-hicks-road-out-teachers-odyssey-poor-america
(Image courtesy Deborah Hicks)
A teacher describes how literature helped a group of girls in an inner-city, white Appalachian ghetto get through the toughest years of adolescence.
Guests
Deborah Hicks
founder and director of the Partnership for Appalachian Girls' Education and research scholar at the Social Science Research Institute at Duke University.
Related Items
Photos From 'The Road Out'
Read An Excerpt
Excerpt from "The Road Out: A Teacher's Odyssey in Poor America" by Deborah Hicks. Copyright 2013 by Deborah Hicks. Reprinted here by permission of University of California Press. All rights reserved.
Comments
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Iam one of the girl's who wrote this book ... Deborah Hicks is an awesome lady.. Love her for what she did for me in my life..!
Chris Hedges has called our pockets of poverty sacrifice zones.
I can't criticize the efforts of Deborah Hicks, but I can criticize the overall failure to follow her example. Reading alone is not enough. There has to be material and emotional input to make uplift work.
I am interested in knowing how long Ms Hicks has taught in a classroom other than at a college level. Also, what levels she taught. Thanks! I am finding the program quite interesting.
I would like to know how Ms. Hicks avoided gender stereotype growing up. Who supported and mentored her? How did she maneuver her social life during undergraduate college, and especially at Harvard?
Is this an all girls school?
Thank you for this wonderful interview with Ms. Hicks. I grew up in Southeastern Ohio and was raised in a working class family. No drugs or crime involved in my upbringing. However, I was lucky in that I had a strong minded mother who pushed for me to transfer from a "country" school to the "town" school. She was convinced, and rightfully so, that I would receive a better education. At her urging I obtained further education after high school and eventually graduated from NCSU. Ms. Hicks' students were lucky to have had her. Once again it proves that good teachers have an incredible effect on disadvantaged students and that horror stories do not always produce criminals or serial killers.
I am from Price Hill / Cincinnati Ohio. it is nice to hear a story about our community, or what remains of it.
I just wanted to follow up to a statement / Question that Diane made/ asked about the TB Hospital somewhere in Price Hill..
She was correct, the Hospital was located at what is now Dunam Recreation Park. there is a high rise structure there. that is used for a number of Recreation functions, such as classes, Yoga, karate etc.
But back in the 20's &30's and so on many people went there to basically die just as my great grandmother did. My grandfather would tell me about how when he was 11 or 12 years old he would walk there from the area around the Western Hills Via-Duct to sit with his mother all through the long winter(s) where they placed all of the people with TB. In beds on the floors with no windows, because they needed the fresh air. I do not know how effective that treatment was, but that is what she had to endure until she passed away about year later. TB was a horrible was to pass, my grandfather would tell me.
I just thought I would share..
thanks
As a fellow Westsider, any success story, is a triumph for all of us in the area. Congratulations for your achievements.
I try to give back to Price Hill any way I can, even picking up litter or trash as trivial as that may sound..
really really enjoyed this today, Deborah you are a gem !! and am going to share this story with some friends, and Diane, I always enjoy your shows, a long time fan, and !st time I have ever left a comment, sorry, but this young women story really moved me, peace , love and pancakes
Dan
I just wanted to say thank you to all the positive comments.. we worked VERY hard on this book... and if it wasn't for Deborah Hicks I don't think I would be where I'am today... and please get the book and read it you will understand ALOT more about us girl's growing up the way we did.. The girl's from the group are still in touch with Deborah.. if any of you live in the Cincinnati area we will be at Jo Beth book store on Newport on the levee telling our part's in the book on March 30th @2pm!! She is a GREAT teacher.. love her an what she has done for me..
No our school was not an all girl's school.
Thanks, I really hope you get the book it is very interesting..
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I've never heard anyone raised in Appalachian North Carolina that sounds like her. How is it possible that she doesn't have an accent? It is quite distinct if you are raised particularly in that area and I've yet to meet someone from the foothills of NC who has changed his or her accent completely. She sounds more like someone from New England who went to Harvard and made up a bio to sell her novel.