Let's Appreciate Our 'Coat of Many Colors'
by John E. Bonfadini, Ed.D., Contributing Columnist;
Professor, George Mason University

When asked which of her many songs was her favorite, Dolly Parton answered, "Coat of Many Colors."

Parton, who grew up in a poor rural environment, recalled how her mother had made a special coat for her from scraps of various colored cloths. She said, "I wore the coat to school in my early years, and it provided me warmth. It also reminded me of my mother's love that was sewn into every stitch."

Yet, variety does not come without its associated problems. People sometimes have preconceived notions of which colors should be mixed and matched. There are also colors for different seasons. I'm a person who in his younger years liked to mix and match bright colors in my selection of apparel. The clothing I wore always elicited comments - some liked the variety and difference, others didn't. I can remember my wife saying to me, "You can't wear those white pants or jacket until May first." I responded, "Who determines that date anyway? It just doesn't make sense to limit white or any other color to a given season."

This introduction is not a prelude to a fashion column, but an analogy of how color and other differences can provide both opportunities and problems. We have plenty of diversity in this country. The diverse fabric of our population is sewn together with the thread of laws established under the framework of the United States Constitution. Yet, even with this strong thread, we as a society haven't always been able to hold the pieces together to make Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors." I've concluded that we need more than strong thread. Love for our fellow man must also accompany every stitch and that can't be legislated.

My father immigrated to this country after a tour of duty in the Italian army during World War I. Being first-generation, I never envisioned myself as an Italian-American, but more as an American with Italian heritage. One of the problems I see in our society is that some members of ethnic groups identify themselves by their ethnic heritage first, and hyphenate their Americanism. We need to recognize the value of each piece of cloth for its individual contribution to the coat, and not how the coat contributes to each piece!

I moved to Manassas in 1966 to teach in the public schools. I can remember the school custodian saying to me, "We're going to have a difficult time this year at this school." When I asked why, he responded by telling me that the school would be integrated that year. How naive I must have been to have taken a teaching position in the south and not even inquired about integration. The Pennsylvania schools that I had attended and taught in were all integrated; I never gave it a second thought. In fact, Dan Barber, one of the few black students, had become president of the class.

Because of integration, I gained a new friend that first year of teaching in Virginia, a fellow teacher by the name of Sue Ellis. She taught physics and I taught electronics in the neighboring lab. We shared teaching ideas, team-taught and on rare occasions intervened in some school disputes. Sue Ellis proved the custodian wrong, for she helped make it a good year for many students and other teachers like myself.

The public schools are the one place in our society where the diverse forces of ethnic backgrounds are brought together. Just recently I watched a New York news channel that highlighted a controversy that arose when a 25-year veteran teacher chose to ask kids of different skin tones to stand as part of a lesson recognizing the diverse nature of the school. The lesson was presented in conjunction with planned activities to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A few students objected to standing. Two parents contacted the news media, which found a need to spend 10 minutes of programming time highlighting the teacher's action. The teacher was put on the hot spot for trying to do her job.

One of the protesting students was interviewed along with her mother. The young girl's father was Egyptian and one of the statements she made during the interview was, "I don't want to be brown, I want to be white like my mother." If anyone needed a lesson in the value of diversity, this student surely did. The young lady and her mother needed to talk with my friend Sue Ellis.

Problems that center on diversity are always in the news and should be discussed as part of school lessons. How could a social studies or history teacher not discuss the flag debate in South Carolina? Good teachers will try to connect the past with the present to make issues more relevant for their students. Whether the Rebel flag should be flown over a state capitol building is an excellent discussion topic. If I were teaching a class where this topic came up, I would say, "It's an improper place for displaying that flag." I would also discuss proper places to display the Rebel flag, such as the Old Virginia General Assembly Room that is now devoted to recognizing Virginia's history. I'm sure I would probably ruffle a few feathers and may be told to stick to teaching the SOLs. My response would be, "Teaching facts is easy; working with the individuals learning those facts is difficult."