Oral History Collection Atkins Library UNCC

1. Oral History CollectionAtkins Library UNCC

2. Randy Hughes Graduate student UNCC 1674-X Lowell-Bethesda Rd. Gastonia, NC 28056 rlhughes@uncc.edu Elaine Rhodes Graduate student UNCC 1231 Oakmont Ave. Charlotte, NC 28205 mrhodes2@uncc.edu Completed by

3. Table of Contents • Summary • Speakers and setting for this interview • Conversational interaction • Major themes • Sample narrative • Major discourse characteristics • Additional features

4. Summary Graduate student Christina Wright interviews Decker Ngongang in 1995. Decker attended open schools in the Charlotte Mecklenburg system in the early 1990s. Interview takes place in Founders’ Hall, Charlotte.

5. Summary • Speakers and setting for this interview • Conversational interaction • Major themes • Sample narrative • Major discourse characteristics • Additional features

6. Decker Ngongang Christina Wright interviewing June 18, 2005

7. Chronology of Events • Charlotte Mecklenburg district-wide reform events spanning 1960 to 2005 www.pbs.org/makingschoolswork/dwr/ nc/chronlology.html

8. Charlotte and Busing • Swann v. Board of Education http://brownat50.org/brownCases/PostBrownCases/SwannvCharlotte-busing.htm

9. District-Wide Reform • Transcription of an Interview with Superintendent Eric Smith (1996-2002) www.pbs.org/makingschoolswork/atp/ transcript.html

10. Equity as an Issue • Writer Corey Ford describes equity issues in the Charlotte Mecklenburg system. www.pbs.org/makingschoolswork/dwr/nc/equity.html

11. District-Wide Reform • Transcription of an Interview with Superintendent Eric Smith (1996-2002) www.pbs.org/makingschoolswork/atp/ transcript.html

12. Contents • Summary • Speakers and setting for this interview • Conversational interaction • Major themes • Sample narrative • Major discourse characteristics • Additional features

13. Conversational Interaction Interviewer initiates subjects and interviewee responds with answers, interspersed with Interruptions: “We learned how to--’sup dawg--’scuse me.” add link Yawns: [yawn] “Sorry.” add link Interjections of agreement: “Yeah,yeah, yeah.” add link

14. Table of Contents • Summary • Speakers and setting for this interview • Conversational interaction • Major themes • Sample narrative • Major discourse characteristics • Additional features

15. People Decker Ngongang Larry Gauvreau Bill James

16. Decker Ngongang • Attended Irwin Elementary early 1990s • Contributing writer to Creative Loafing • On the Board of Members for POST

17. Places Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Charlotte, North Carolina

18. Open School Movement Texts Julius Chambers MSS at UNCC Benjamin S. Horack MSS at UNCC William Waggoner MSS at UNCC Margaret Whitton Ray MSS at UNCC NPR on busing American RadioWorks on desegregation efforts Events

19. Table of Contents • Summary • Speakers and setting for this interview • Conversational interaction • Major themes • Sample narrative • Major discourse characteristics • Additional features

20. Key components-Labov ABSTRACT: “I mean for us, there was this lady, Ms. Barber, who lived across the street.” add link here pdf file excerpt

21. Key components-Labov ORIENTATION: “I don’t know if she’s still alive or not but she’s one of our, one of the teacher’s good friends. She lived across the street from Irwin.”

22. Key components-Labov COMPLICATING ACTION: “And in the fifth grade we’d just go take field trips to Ms. Barber’s house. She opened the fence and we just all kinda chilled there.”

23. Key components-Labov EVALUATION: “We loved it.”

24. Key components-Labov RESOLUTION: “I mean we would ride the bus and yell at her just because she was a nice lady.”

25. Norms, expectations - Hymes SETTING AND SCENE: “They had paddles at Pineville.”

26. Norms, expectations - Hymes PARTICIPANTS: Interviewer Christina Wright Interviewee Decker Ngongang

27. Norms, expectations - Hymes ENDS: When Christine asks about Decker compares discipline at Pineville Elementary to Irwin’s in the open school environment.

28. Norms, expectations - Hymes ACT SEQUENCE: “Like they used to whip kids at school. At Irwin…we had little timeout things. And at Pineville, you got beat.”

29. Norms, expectations - Hymes KEY: Incredulous-- [Laughter] “Yeah! At Irwin I swear I thought it was the weirdest thing in the world.”

30. Norms, expectations - Hymes INSTRUMENTALITIES: • Informal speech • Occasional grammatical errors • Swearing • Laughter • Yawns

31. Norms, expectations - Hymes NORMS: “Because I never really, my mom didn’t, believe in it and so it was this, kind of this alien thing.”

32. Norms, expectations - Hymes GENRE: Decker is relaying to an interviewer about discipline programs at two contrasting schools using examples of conditions.

33. Table of Contents • Summary • Speakers and setting for this interview • Conversational interaction • Major themes • Sample narrative • Major discourse characteristics • Additional features

34. Table of Contents • Summary • Speakers and setting for this interview • Conversational interaction • Major themes • Sample narrative • Major discourse characteristics • Additional features

35. Metaphors Decker: “Tiptoe that line of being bad.” “Finding the common threads.” “It was kind of like your place of worship as a community.” “It’s kinda like knowing the car that you want but seeing that it has leather--or a CD player.”

36. Select Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Irwin Avenue Elementary School Piedmont Open Middle School West Charlotte High School Garinger High School East Mecklenburg High School

37. Irwin Avenue Elementary School • Opened Fall 1973 • First system-wide “optional school” • New building 1995 • 600+ students

38. Piedmont Open Middle School • Opened Fall 1977 • First system-wide “optional middle school” • 700+ students

39. Events: Call Numbers: Open Schools • Z5814.O63 R35 Open education : a bibliography / by Janelle Ranken • LB1029.O6 I53 Informal education: "open classroom" provokes change, controversy; Theodor Schuchat • LB1029.O6 C37 1974 Open sesame: a primer in open education [by] Evelyn M. Carswell and Darrell L. Roubinek • LB1029.O6 S72 The teacher’s guide to open education [by] Lillian S. Stephens • LB1029.O6 P47 The Philosophy of open education / edited and with an introd. by David Nyberg • LA633.R3 Open education: the informal classroom; a selection of readings that examine the practices and principles of the British infant schools and their American counterparts. Selected and edited by Charles H. Rathbone

40. Works Cited • Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. 14 November 2007 <http://www.cms.k12.nc.us/>. • CreativeLoafing.com. 14 November 2007 <http://charlotte.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/index>. • Partners in Out of School Time. Postcarolinas.org 15 November 2007 <http://www.postcarolinas.org/index.cfm>.

41. Acknowledgements • The staff in UNCC’s Special Collections Library.