Living the dream

Alferd leaves behind Trouble and Li’l Man, a pair of Pit Bulls, at 7 a.m. for his daily 12-block-walk to school. He arrives at 7:30 a.m. and finds his quiet place in the library where he reads until 9 a.m. Then he is off to Alesia Hamilton’s first-grade classroom where he joins the rest of his first-grade friends for carpet time. Alferd sits on his short wooden stool among his classmates, ready to learn. The expression on his face as eager as a five year old on Christmas morning, Alferd projects an enthusiasm for school that infects each of his classmates. His eyes are wide and round and intent on soaking up every ounce of literacy his brain ?can hold.

Alferd Williams is 69 years old and living the answer to his mother’s prayer that he would one day learn to read. About five-foot-four, this white-haired African-American man is a soft-spoken angel who has fallen into St. Joseph NEA member Alesia Hamilton’s classroom.

“If you go to church as much as I do, you know that they say the Lord says this and the Lord says that,” Williams says. “I don’t now what the Lord says. I just hear what everyone says He says, and I want to read it for myself. I belong here. My mama prayed for this, and here I am.”

One of nine children, Williams spent his childhood helping his family farm cotton in rural Tennessee. His mother taught him to count, a necessary skill in harvesting cotton, but she did not know how to read. School was a luxury. She prayed her son would someday have that opportunity.

Today, Williams attends first grade at Edison Elementary School in St. Joseph. Officially a volunteer, Williams helps others learn while he is a full participant in class. With the first-grade children, he models the teaching techniques Hamilton has been using to teach him.

“Our first-grade friends love Alferd coming in each day,” Hamilton says. “It’s funny. They don’t treat him like an adult. They treat him as one of their own. They know that he’s learning just like they are, and they help him just like he helps them. He does everything in first grade that our six and seven year olds do. He keeps a reading log, and he has a book basket and a writing folder. He is a first grader.”

Finding Edison Elementary

Three years ago, Williams took in a mother and three children. When he escorted the children to school every day, waited for them at the school day’s end and attended parent-teacher conferences with the mother, Hamilton concluded that he must be their grandfather.

“The children lovingly referred to him as ‘Pops,’” Hamilton explains. “I assumed they were family but later learned that he was no blood relation to them—just a sweet old guy who wanted to take care of them and make sure they made it to school every day. He was outside my classroom waiting for them every day. He had a smile that absolutely melted my heart!”

Hamilton discovered that Williams could not read when she asked him about a paper she sent home with one of the children. Williams admitted he could not read the paper.

“I asked him if he was interested in finding some help, and he graciously told me that he had tried to learn before, but it just hadn’t worked out for him,” Hamilton says.

In May 2005, Williams approached Hamilton outside the school at the end of the day.

“He told me he was ready to learn to read,” Hamilton says. “I told him I would find out what resources St. Joe had to help adults learn to read.”

Williams didn’t like that approach. He said he didn’t want any resources. He wanted “Mrs. Hamilton” to teach him.

Hamilton told Williams she would have to think about it. After all, she had never taught anyone over age eight to read.

Williams says he prayed over and over that night that Mrs. Hamilton would say yes. And she did. Her principal, Jennifer Patterson, and the parents who are active in the school are supportive of Williams. They are proud of him and grateful for the role he models for the children.

“We began tutoring in June each day after summer school,” says Hamilton. “I was a Reading Recovery teacher when I taught in Hannibal. I modeled my lessons after that experience, took what he knew and built on that. Now he comes to school each day.”

Not only does Williams attend school, but he also returns often at the end of the school day and during the summer for tutoring sessions with Hamilton.

A moment of fame

“I was just answering a newspaper article about someone giving money to the community,” Hamilton says. “I wanted to get Alferd some books to have at home, and the next thing we knew, we were headed to the Oprah show.”

In a campaign to “pay it forward,” Oprah Winfrey gave $1,000 Bank of America gift cards to people in her studio audience and asked them to spend it on acts of kindness. When audience member Tiffany Tant of St. Joseph received her $1,000, she submitted an article to the local newspaper soliciting good causes for her funds. Hamilton responded to the article, and Williams received his books…and much more.

“The Oprah experience was phenomenal, but it’s watching Alferd’s life change that’s been the most rewarding for me,” Hamilton says. “He has goals, he has a never-ending smile, and he’s so proud of himself for all he’s done.”

Winfrey sent a limousine to pick up Williams and the Hamiltons (Alesia and her husband, Lonnie) from the airport. The limo driver told Williams he was a celebrity.

“He said I could go anywhere I wanted in the limo, but I said I would just stay in my room. My hotel had a big TV, a big bed and room service. Oprah gave me $200 to spend on room service! I felt like a rich man. Before the show, two women greeted me at the limo door. They had food, and they powdered me up. I’m a star, and I haven’t even got out of the first grade. Kids from everywhere brought me books. It was awesome.”

Changed lives

“Alferd has totally changed the way I think about teaching school,” Hamilton says. “I have always taught in Title One buildings and have always known kids in those schools needed me, but until this year I never knew just how much.”

A teacher for 18 years, Hamilton says she finally understands her impact on people’s lives through teaching reading.

“Alferd has made me see that by helping students learn to read, whether they are six or 69, I am helping them to become who they want to be. I am seeing life through both the eyes of six year olds and a 69 year old, and it’s the best thing ever.”

Williams says he now knows the meaning of the EXIT signs at the hospital, which he notes makes him feel safer, and he no longer has to walk down all the aisles in the grocery store to find the sugar.

“Did you know Mrs. Hamilton that they is signs above the rows that tell you what’s in them?” he asked upon his reading discovery.

Just the beginning

Alferd Williams has plans. He’ll stay in Hamilton’s class next year, continuing to work with her after school and during the summer until he reaches his goal.

“God put everything here, and all we have to do is go for it,” he says. “That’s what I’m doin’. I’m going to be the first person in my family to go to college. In 10 years, I won’t be but 79. I’m going to be an educated man.”

by Debra Angstead
MNEA communications director