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Teaching is a family affair for Shirley and Jaculine Taylor at Dirksen

JOLIET — Shirley Taylor never expected her little girl to grow up and become a teacher like her. But Taylor, who has taught in the Joliet grade school district for 31 years, was joined by her daughter Jaculine this fall at Dirksen. While it's certainly unusual to have a mother and daughter teach at the same school — Shirley can't think of another example — the story goes deeper than this. That's because Shirley is a pioneer — one of the first 20 or so black teachers in the Joliet Grade School system. ...

  Dave Evans, a school board member since 1978, said he believes the first three black schoolteachers came to the school district in 1954.

   The head of personnel started to recruit minority teachers in the mid-1960s. Five teachers came around 1966 and initially all roomed together in one house until they could find someone who would rent to them, Evans said.

 

Never lonely

  Shirley was the only black teacher when she started at A.O. Marshall School.

  "When I came here to Joliet in 1970 I think at that time there were not a lot of black teachers. I was the only black teacher at that school until 1974."

  Did she feel lonely? "No," she replies. "It wasn't at all lonely. It was just great. No one treated me different."

  But Shirley does remember she felt she had to serve as a good example. "Personally, being black, I thought a white person can give 100 percent and I felt as a black teacher I had to give more to give my best, 110 percent. Maybe that was my upbringing."

  Shirley is originally from Birmingham, Ala.

  "I acutally lived that life with Dr. King," she says, sounding like someone who would be a good subject for a Black History research paper. "One of my best friends was one of the girls who was killed in the bombing at the church. So this is history I actually shared."

  Shirley will never forget working in her college library and meeting Dr. Martin Luther King Sr. and Julian Bond at a book signing.

  Racism was a daily thing, something very open in the South, she remembers. In the North, she hasn't met it much.

  "We knew what we were supposed to do down South. We knew that we had to sit at the back of the bus. In the North, we didn't face that at all. In the South, it was understood. In the North, I felt it (racism) just a little bit, but absolutely nothing compared to what we were brought up with."

  Most school districts today talk about the need to hire more minority teachers. Joliet Grade School has had a difficult time recruiting minorities because pay scales were lower than elsewhere, Evans said. Now he hopes the recent raises in pay will attract more good minority teachers.

  There are 3,715 black students in Joliet Grade Schools, or 39 percent, according to a grade school spokesman. There are 59 black teachers and administrators out of 596, or 10 percent.

   "I've been recruited by other school districts, but I chose to stay here. I am so happy I did," said Shirley, whose husband Larry was a Joliet police officer for 23 years. Her son Larry Jr. was the first black weatherman in the U.S. Navy, she says she was told. Daughter Elizabeth is a student at Joliet Junior College.

 

Daughter chooses career

  At on time, the Taylors thought they might have a trifecta: three women in teaching. But Elizabeth now says she wants to be a dental hygienist.

  As for Jaculine, her choice to be a teacher did surprise her mother.

  "We actually thought she was going to be an architect," Shirley said. "She really draws extremely well. And that was her love all the way through school. She would just sit and sketch. I think teaching maybe got into her head when she started out at Urbana-Champaign."

   Jaculine was not one of those little girls who played school when she was growing up. In addition to drawing, she also loved math.

  "I didn't think I wanted to be a teacher at first," Jaculine said. "I actually wanted to go into accounting because I wanted to make money."

  But as she began taking courses in accounting, Jaculine couldn't picture herself in the corporate world, so she started thinking about changing her major.

  "I have to be somewhere where I can be social, I always loved playing with my cousins and stuff, and I always liked math," said Jaculine, who then started to think about the possibility of following in her mother's footsteps.

  "I knew she loved her job and I kind of told her about it. I told her I really didn't want to do accounting," Jaculine said. "Whatever decision I was going to make, she said 'I'll be behind you all the way. It's your life, you have to be happy with whatever you do.'"

  Shirley exposed both her daughters to her job when they were growing up, frequently bringing them to the school to help her with small tasks or putting up bulletin boards.

  In fact, if Shirley couldn't find exactly what she wanted for a bulletin board, Jaculine would draw it for her.

  Shirley has taught kindergarten and first grade for seven years at Dirksen. Jaculine is teaching sixth grade math her first year and enjoying it tremendously.

  "It's really great," she said. "Not only do I have a staff that I can count on, but my mother's in the building."

  She was not prepared, however, for the amount of homework she would have to grade. It was not until she started teaching that she realized she would have 154 papers to grade every time she assigned homework.

  "I love it in the classroom, but the moment I tell them to pass up that homework I think about my weekend," Jaculine says with a laugh.

  Although Jaculine remembers her mother coming home from school and talking about what a great day she had, Jaculine finds herself tired by the end of the day.

  "I didn't think it would be this tiring," she says. "I don't even want to come in sometimes and watch TV."

  And sometimes when she does watch TV, she falls asleep.

  "My mom is always telling me, 'You're young, you can handle it.' Well, actually I can't," Jaculine says, laughing.

  In addition to joining her mother at Dirksen, Jaculine has also moved back home.

  "I'm enjoying having her at home and we get along," Shirley says. "After she's been living away from home for five years, you have to readjust."

  "I'm glad to be back at home," agrees Jaculine.

  But how do mother and daughter work together in the same school?

  "Sometimes we go in the building together and they tease us, but once we're in that building, I respect her as a professional."

  Shirley says the two of them talk about their day when they get home, sharing stories and philosophy.

  "I think she's picked up from me that when you go in there your main thing is to teach and keep the kids motivated," Shirley says.

  And Jaculine sees teaching as a win-win profession: "I can do what I enjoy and pass it on to others as well."

-- Features Editor Jan Larsen contributed to this story.