A few months back, I posted my thought about recognizing people who had been underrecognized for their accomplishments. 

Since then, I've found a few more and will link to them below, but there certainly is a common theme: almost all of them are female or belong to an ethnic or racial minority. And since the NY Times recently did an entire piece on women who had changed history over the past 100 years, I'll make this my last post on the subject, but since I had been collecting these, I might as well add them here.

- A pioneering paleontologist and avid fossil collector, Mary Anning’s discoveries have contributed significantly to modern-day science. But until recently, she was relatively unknown.

- Gladys West, a mathematician whose modeling of the Earth’s shape played a critical role in the development of GPS worked in near obscurity. She was almost 90 before she received any recognition for her work.

- A comedian's take on The Grapefruit Ladies of Ireland who helped end apartheid in South Africa.

And finally, my favorite, a story about a Philadelphia woman named Caroline Rebecca LeCount, who preceded Rosa Parks, but performed the same action, and whose name was almost lost to history.  

LeCount’s work is frequently likened to that of Rosa Parks. But, many officials celebrated her work as a basis for Park’s later work. 

“It has been suggested that Caroline LeCount was the Rosa Parks of her time, but since Caroline came before Rosa, I like to think that Rosa Parks was the Caroline LeCount of her time,” said Marianne McQuaid, a senior designer on Maps & Schedules with SEPTA. 

 

This was my assignment to my 8th grade Language Arts classes this past Friday to complete this next week over Spring Break (after they had finished the actual assignment their teacher had left for them).

They asked for an explanation and after I told them more about it and how it aligns with my philosophy of life, one student asked me to validate Them. I thought for a moment and told them that I appreciated how well they all got along with each other so well and seem to not only like each other but how they support each other so well.

Then I added that I hope that by now they realize that as annoying as school can be, they are no longer there to impress their parents or their teachers or their friends and that there is only one person they need to impress. I paused, a second or three passed and I heard a chorus of "ME!" One girl said in a sense of wonder, "wow, that actually makes me want to take this more seriously." And a boy said "That was like a Kobe Bryant message!" Another said "That is actually so motivating."

Two students simultaneously then related it to their class assignment that day which was to identify an archetype in the book they are reading - Hunger Games. They asked if I am a mentor, like an archetype mentor.

After three years, my favorite day of (substitute) teaching so far.