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GUEST COLUMN: An inspiration for DPS

Friday, October 19 at 12:00 AM

By Shepard Nevel

When 14-year-old Marie sat down to discuss her college goals with her counselor at East High School, the advice she received was hardly encouraging. Despite the fact that Marie was a high-performing freshman in the top 10 percent of her class, the adviser told her not to waste her time. “You’re going to end up cooking or cleaning at somebody’s house.” Her face flushed with anger, Marie stood up, emphatically announced that “I am going to college,” paced quickly from the counselor’s office to the girls’ bathroom and began to sob.

Marie not only went to college, she ended up making history, twice, as the first African-American to earn a tenured teaching position in Denver Public Schools (in 1938) and the first to be assigned to an all-white school (in 1955). And now the still-vibrant 94-year-old adds to a remarkable legacy with her recently published book, Every Child Can Learn, that recounts her successes with some of her most challenging first-grade students and offers opinions that have relevance to DPS’ current mission.

In fact, Marie Greenwood’s accomplished life could be considered an inspiration for the Denver school district’s energizing aspirations to transform urban education.

Facing intractable racism at East, young Marie transferred in her sophomore year to West High, where the principal insisted that all students regardless of color would be treated with respect. Marie graduated third in her class and went on to Colorado State College of Education in Greeley (now the University of Northern Colorado) where she earned her degree in 1935.

Marie recalls that when she started teaching 70 years ago, she had two goals. “I had to keep my job in the middle of the Depression and I had to keep the door open for others to come in.” Because the first African-American teacher hired by DPS on probation in 1934 did not work out,

Marie was mindful that her success would affect other black teachers for years to come. And her starting teacher’s salary of $1,200 a year was like “manna from heaven,” Marie writes, because it enabled her to move her parents from a “dim basement apartment” to a more comfortable house.

Every Child Can Learn is animated by a commitment to excellence that transcends race or income. “When I am teaching,” Marie writes, “no matter what the ethnic make-up of the class might be, those children are my children. I have control and I get the desired response.” After teaching at Whittier Elementary in northeast Denver until 1945, Marie went on maternity leave to start her family. She returned to teaching in 1953, first as a substitute and then in a permanent position two years later at Newlon Elementary in the Barnum neighborhood, a school that was all-white except for her own children. Newlon’s principal, Mildred Biddick, welcomed her to the school.

Unfortunately, the school district was less receptive to the idea of an African-American teacher crossing the unofficial color line. The superintendent in charge of elementary education (named Bennett, no relation to current Superintendent Michael Bennet) tried to talk Marie into teaching at a northeast Denver school, which Marie declined. “I was the first American-American teacher to be assigned to an all-white school in the history of the Denver Public Schools,” Marie writes, “so every week Mr. Bennett called to see how ‘Mrs. Greenwood’ was getting along and Miss Biddick would tell him, ‘Mrs. Greenwood is doing just fine. She is one of my best teachers.’ By spring of 1956 he stopped calling.”

The heart of Greenwood’s book is a collection of profiles of children who had been struggling, often labeled problem children at other schools, but who flourished under her tutelage. “Given time and patience,” Greenwood says resolutely, “every child can learn.”

Marie is not the only pioneer in her family. Her late husband, Bill, who died in 1983, started his career at Lowry Air Force Base as an assistant custodian in 1940, cleaning the very offices that he would manage 10 years later as the base’s budget director and highest-ranking civilian. His office was right next to President Eisenhower’s “Summer White House” at Lowry.

Although she retired from teaching in 1974, Greenwood continues to volunteer her time as a reading instructor at the K-8 public school in Montbello that bears her name. As DPS continues its commendable march toward reform, there is much to be learned by listening to the acquired insights of a remarkable woman who first stepped into a classroom, and into history, more than seven decades ago.

Shepard Nevel, an attorney, has children enrolled in Denver’s public schools.

READER COMMENTS

What an inspiring story, and so beautifully recounted by your guest columnist Shepard Nevel.

It was truly uplifting to read about the life of Marie Greenwood, who at 94 is still helping children as a volunteer reading instructor. May she live to be as old as Moses!

There should also be a special place in history for Mildred Biddick, the principal who hired Ms. Greenwood in the hyper-racist 1950's as the first African American to teach at an all-white school in the Denver public school system---and stood by her despite opposition by the superintendent of schools.

Please, let's have some more columns like Mr. Nevel's, and some more sainted teachers like Marie Greenwood! I am on my way out to buy her book.

Posted by David Harold on October 20, 2007 06:44 PM

Wow, DPS has sucked for a lot longer then I suspected!!
Let's all hear it though for taking personal responsibility for ones life, setting a goal and allowing nothing to get in the way.
The Nation sure needs more of that spirit, in my opinion.

Posted by Jim in Erie on October 20, 2007 11:34 AM

I am embarrassed and ashamed to realize the extent of racism in the District as related in the article.
No wonder this local gov't entity has a top-heavy admin and a picture of a shouting teacher in the pages of the Post with a caption reading, "Why do I deserve this?!".
Like any other dictatorship, the District consists of an Elite (admins), a Working Class (teachers), and a Lower Class (classified workers: janitors, warehouse workers, busdrivers). It still seems hopelessly archaic and -- in ways a little less outspoken than it used to be -- racist.
The article actually explains a lot about DPS. Thank you for publishing it, and the inspiring story of the subject's courageous and triumphant battle to defy the odds and succeed, in spite of the District's attempts to subdue her because of the color of her skin.
As a Denver native born in the 50s, I am horrified and very sorry. Thought we were better than that. She deserved more.

Posted by Kathy Hansen on October 19, 2007 04:21 PM