Retired educator Phyllis Dunning taught thousands of students in Winston-Salem, many during the turbulence of the 1960s and 70s. But the 92-year-old’s mentorship and its impact went far beyond the classroom.
Dunning has a frozen vocal fold that makes speaking difficult. She’s joined in this interview by New York-based co-author Joyce Storey. They spoke with WFDD’s David Ford about their new book — A Life Well Lived: Mrs. Dunning’s Lesson Plan for Happiness.
Storey and Dunning will both be speaking at Salemtowne in Winston-Salem on June 3.
Interview Highlights
On meeting students where they are:
PD: "Oh, my students taught me. I mean, Oh, my word. There I was teaching in the 60s. Remember the music, popular music of the 60s? That was not my favorite kind of music, but, oh, my students were listening to it. So of course, I made myself listen to it, and lo and behold, what happens? You start liking it, you start understanding it, you start hearing it, even when you don't know you're listening."
"And of course, for me, you know, going to teach in the school, all my students were Black. And of course, I had read some Black writers, but I realized, oh, not enough. So, you know, it so broadened my reading."
JS: "I think one of the amazing things about Mrs. Dunning is the fact that she understood what it meant to meet them where they were, to meet her students, to meet a new person. She always, to this day, makes that extra effort. She meets a new person in town and says, 'Oh, you look very interesting, tell me your story.' And she starts there with a genuine interest and curiosity about a person. And when she was teaching, she really went the extra mile. I mean, how many teachers do you know who go to your church on the weekend just to find out who you are and want to meet your family? I mean, that's an amazing skill and intuition that she has."
On diversity and inclusion then and now:
JS: "Mrs. Dunning and I have had this discussion a lot. We've really talked about the parallel of 1970 when she was in the classroom, desegregating, helping with the process of desegregating, and where we are today. I think people are afraid of what they don't know. Even as children — they've done a lot of psychological studies of children who gravitate towards sameness — and they're afraid of something that's different. But as Mrs. Dunning has stated, people at their core, we all want the same thing. We want love. We want people to care about us. We want to care about other people. We want family. We want friends. We want community. We want stability in our lives, and we want harmony in our life."
"And I think that's why this chapter about diversity is so important. Education teaches us that maybe we are a lot more alike than we think we are, and maybe we need to go back to our grassroots of reminding ourselves that life is about family, life, love, community and caring about one another."
On gratitude:
PD: "I was teaching in a very magical time. In Winston, Salem, Forsyth County, it's when we consolidated the city and the county systems, then we integrated faculties, then we integrated students. And I think it was during all of that that I became more and more aware of being so grateful that I was living in that magical time just to get to be a part of all of that."
Editor's note: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.