An African American Teacher Morphs into a Mentor

By

Sherman N. Miller

Initially released 2/09/2006 and re-released 2/1/2007 Black History Month

It is a privilege to get an opportunity to study under a world class member of an economic mainstream craft. You may think you are good until suddenly this person demands that you operate at some extraordinary level that somehow conjures up in you a passion to want to be amongst the best in this craft. Thus, it was gratifying and challenging to have been fortunate to study column writing under the direction of the late African American Pulitzer Award winning journalist, Norman Lockman, who wrote for the News Journal in Wilmington, DE during his lifetime. 

Lockman’s first lesson was that I should appreciate humility. When he assessed and marked up a few of my columns, my ego was crushed at his harsh review. There were red marks seemingly everywhere. Of course, I needed a day or two to regain my composure after looking at all of the red marks that overwhelmed my writing. 

Lockman did not question my African American slant on issues. He respected my Republican philosophical beliefs. Lockman just demanded that I justify my stances. This justification process often entailed fierce debates between us on various issues.

Lockman taught that I should follow the data and not let my personal beliefs cloud my journalistic judgment. His lesson was that journalists should not be in the business of writing political propaganda for any political party. It was crystal clear that the columnist’s job is to offer understanding on the issues reported by the reporters and offer new prospectus on items he or she personally observe. Today, whenever I sit down at my computer to write a column I am neither Democrat nor Republican. 

Once Lockman got my writing level to a mainstream national caliber, he changed his role from a teacher to a mentor.  He asked if I would accompany him to Harvard University to meet with some Black writers who wrote for mainstream newspapers across the United States of America. Lockman opened the door for me to join the Trotter Group where I now have new columnist friends who work for papers such as the USA Today, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Washington Times, Newsday, and so on.

As a Trotter Group member, I got to speak with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at Stanford University while she was still their provost. My Trotter Group membership allowed me to be a part of a team to interview Secretary Rice at The White House while she was the National Security Advisor to President George Bush. Thus, Lockman taught that the teacher can not only teach the student but she or he might also become a mentor to open opportunity for the student’s ability to flourish.

Although I greatly enjoy writing newspaper commentaries, I also have a passion for teaching mathematics, especially to nontraditional college students (people 25 years and up) who come from inner city backgrounds where they may have been educationally hamstrung from being victims of yesteryear’s social promotion schemes. I believe one way to help improve public education is to help the parents academically at the college level who can then help their own children with homework and be able to discuss education issues with teachers on a comparable educational footing.  

As I studied more under Lockman, I found that the joy I got from writing numerous technical reports while in end use research and technical marketing at the DuPont Company had morphed into a desire to write books that captured my mathematical teaching experiments in the classroom at Delaware State University. I felt driven to write up my findings so I could share them with others who would follow me.

Lockman appeared to understand when I shared that I would pursue a doctorate degree in education at the University of Delaware to be able to take a more definitive position on educational issues and offer my talents in helping to solve the educational crisis presently underway. He knew about my first book on teaching college algebra that published through a major publishing house in the summer of 2005. I felt that subtly Lockman was encouraging my desire to split my newspaper writing loyalty to now include writing books that touched on enfranchising inner city people as a human resource potential in our current global economic struggle to preserve the American standard of living through fostering a globally competitive workforce.

The greatest lesson that I learned from Norman Lockman was that it is okay to disagree on issues as long as we disagree agreeably. Lockman made it clear that as news people we were helping to write tomorrow’s US History books, so it was incumbent that we get things right the first time. Over the many years of our friendship, I concluded that Lockman is one of those rare conduits between the stereotypic Black History Month characterizations of important Black figures and a tough-minded mainstream writer because he did not allow race to cloud his judgment in writing—he took all races to the woodshed when he felt they needed a public spanking.