US Journal
Wednesday, May 29,
2013
Collus’ Master’s
Thesis
Cleaning out the basement is becoming a treasure hunt.
Today, I found the original document that was my father Collus’ Master’s Thesis
from the University of Tennessee in 1948. The title is “Burning Bush Community
and School: A Partnership in Education” by Collus O. Johnson. I have seen it
before, but I never read it all the way through; so, that’s what I did today.
In the 1940’s, before my father was a university educator,
he worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a federal corporation that
was designed to help people after the Depression in the South to improve their communities’
economic growth. In addition, the
farmers at that time particularly needed help to farm the lands in a way that would be healthier for the earth
and for the people who bought and ate what was grown. My dad, who was raised in a farming family, was one of the TVA
staff who was given the task of facilitating the collaboration of all the
personnel resources that were available to the farmers and encourage everybody
to work together so that their communities would flourish. Those resources
included the teachers in the schools, students and parents, the ministers in
the church, the rest of the community who lived in the area, the federal
agricultural agents who had impressive knowledge that they shared with the
farmers whenever they were needed and asked, and even the local telephone
company and utilities companies.
The document that I read today could have come right out of
a Slow Food history book. It was all about sustaining the earth and training
people to make good dietary selections in growing their crops and serving their
meals. In this document, my father reported about research in one small
community in northern Georgia called Burning Bush. The community had problems,
and they wanted help. They wanted to be taught what they needed to know to
solve their problems. So, the approach was individualized: the farmers,
students and others in the community worked together to form a list of specific
skills and information that they needed. Even in the schools, the children and
adults were taught according to their expressed needs. Of course, the teachers
made sure that the state standards were incorporated for the children, but the
old curriculum was used only as a resource. Dad’s help in facilitating the collaboration
of all the available resources toward that focus lead this small community to be able to
problem solve in any situation.
The results of his year-long research were impressive…the
community was well on its way in the process of taking charge of their
community and making it flourish.
I finished the book, once again proud that my dad had been
able to help this change happen in that small community and others throughout
Tennessee. It also reminded me of the importance of lifelong learning that my
father and mother preached and modeled. My father was 55 when he returned to the
university to take his doctoral course, the same age that I was many years
later when I received my Doctorate. He was a great example in every way! I
treasured being “Daddy’s little girl!”
Thanks, Dad,
Colleen
