Today’s question was asked by Bronwyn Harris
Bronwyn Harris began her teaching career in East Oakland in January 2000, teaching first-graders who had already gone through one teacher and six substitutes during that school year. In the first five minutes of teaching, one student threw a book at her head and she realized she had no set curriculum with which to teach them. In addition, she was a “roving teacher,” meaning that she moved classrooms every three weeks.
Teaching at this school did not get easier as she transitioned into teaching third grade, but the students were incredible: creative, thoughtful, loving, angry, at-risk, misunderstood, valuable, and overlooked. After eight principals in less than eight years, Harris had to face the fact that she couldn’t keep working in such an environment and left the school district, but has stayed in touch with many of her students.
During her time teaching, Harris would tell many of her middle-class white friends about what was going on at her school, and found that many of them didn’t believe her, which is how the title of the book came to be. This also strengthened her resolve to write down the true stories so that people would know this side of life in the Bay Area.
For more information, please visit her website bronwynharrisauthor.com
We grew up poor; like most of my friends, like most people in Oakland. We grew up poor, but happy. A family of four children and two working parents. We had clothes and shoes, food, water, electricity, a roof over our heads… you know, like most people. What we didn’t have, at least I don’t think we had, was a knowledge of how much cool shit there is out there to see. Even just a few miles from home.
Don’t get me wrong, my family did a lot of cool shit outdoors: We had picnics at the Oakland Zoo (back when you were able to do that). We spent a TON of weekends at parks all over the east bay, bicycling, hiking up the hills, BBQing… But, we rarely left the east bay.
Looking back on it now, I feel like a lot of everyday people might be trapped like that. Hey, I get it, we all work, we all have our responsibilities. Some struggle more, some struggle less; whether it be with time or money… But the one thing that should be readily available and accessible is the knowledge of whats out there.
I’m old enough to say that I grew up before the internet. So, information on things was a tad bit harder to come by. I mean, you had to go to a library, or ask a teacher or something… Not insanely hard. I had incredible teachers my whole k-12 stint in the Oakland Unified School District. I look back on those years with such fondness because my teachers played a huge role in influencing who I am today.
In school, we went on field trips constantly. Those days were incredible. We went to all (not all, all) the museums and aquariums. Fueling my love of nature before I even knew I had it.
I also learned at home with the help from my parents. They taught me botany, in the garden (in which I spent countless hour of my youth, tending to). Physics and engineering ’cause my dad was always building something out of wood. But my Favorite, they taught me about wildlife with a little help from PBS. I remember sitting in the living room with my dad, watching nature programming. It was great. My favorite was a show called Marty Stouffer’s Wild America (unfortunately it’s not on anymore). It was DOPE.
I bought my first camera (a Kodak, point and shoot) in the winter of 2005. I bought two of them; one for me, one for my kid sister, for Christmas. They were on sale for something like 190 bucks a piece. A little steep for me, two years out of high school, but I had to make sure that Christmas was special for my little sister (my mom was battling cancer at the time).
The following summer, a good friend of mine invited me camping. I had been camping twice before in my life, and I really enjoyed it. But this time was the first time I took a camera.
These are some of the first pictures I ever took when I took photography up as a hobby.
They’re not necessarily any good. But I enjoyed taking a picture of the things that I saw on my trip. Instead of describing things to my friends about what I saw, I could just show them a picture. On top of the proof that taking a picture creates of actually being somewhere and seeing something, it also creates an instance of memory. Years later, I look at these pictures and remember the adventure we had. There’s something kinda wonderful about remembering good times with good people.
After a taste of taking pictures, I was ready to update my equipment. You see, my point-and-shoot was great (I still have it) but I very quickly outgrew it. It couldn’t really-really zoom, I couldn’t really tell it what to focus on, couldn’t really do long exposures or mess with settings easily…
I soon-there-after, made a very large purchase (I think it was like 700 bucks) and bought myself my first real camera-camera. A Samsung NX1000. A mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses. And I took that thing everywhere.
I started to learn a lot with this camera, and it took me places (literally). I wanted to see everything I could, and shoot it. A friend of mine and I started hiking regularly, in parks all around the bay area. It was dope, we plotted courses and set off for miles. With camera in hand, I took pictures of everything that I could.
One day, I got a call from my mom; they had broken into our house. They took everything. Ev-er-y-thing. They took my camera and my brand new laptop that I bought just for my photography… I was heart-broken, yo.
But you can’t keep a good man down. After a couple months of saving up a little bit, I took myself to the store and picked up a Nikon DSLR. It’s what I shoot with today.
There’s endless possibilities with a camera. Capturing instances that time will forget. Photographs are a rudimentary ‘Pensieve’, allowing us to look back and remember when memory might fail us. Still-more, I use photography as a means of exploration. It’s an avenue that I use to observe, record, and be part of nature. There’s so many cool things to see in this world. And taking pictures has helped me get out and see them.
Grizzly De Haro 