Every Child Can Learn

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. ""Youre going to end up cooking or cleaning at somebodys house." Her face flushed with anger, Marie stood up, emphatically announced that "I am going to college," ... 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 teachers 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.