Appalachia in the Classroom: Teaching the Region

1. Intro to Appalacian Studies: Navigating Myths of Appalachian Exceptionalism

3 One Intro to Appalachian Studies: Navigating Myths of Appalachian Exceptionalism emily satterwhite When I walked into the room for the first day of Intro to Appalachian Studies, . . . I was half expecting to see a man dressed in plaid with few teeth going on about what it was like living in Appalachia. — First-year student, College of Engineering, Williamsburg,Virginia (Virginia Beach– Norfolk–Newport News consolidated metropolitan statistical area) I love country music and southern food so I was excited for the class to begin. I was surprised when you began by disproving everything I thought to be true of the region on the first day of class. I believe that this surprising turn of events allowed me to learn much more about the region than I had initially expected. — Senior, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Chesapeake,Virginia (Virginia Beach–Norfolk–Newport News consolidated metropolitan statistical area) In the beginning of the course I was frustrated with Wilma Dunaway’s quest to take away everything about Appalachia that I like. Her argument would probably be that I romanticize the region . . . based off of memories of visits and relatives. Throughout the course of the semester Emily Satterwhite 4 I realized the importance of Dunaway and busting other Appalachia myths. — Sophomore, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Chester,Virginia (Richmond metropolitan statistical area) This class made me realize that I grew up in Appalachia. . . . As embarrassing as it is to admit, I was one of those . . . people that thought of Appalachia as poor white people that lived in ramshackle houses in the mountains. This class helped me . . . to establish my identity. — First-year student, College of Natural Resources, Augusta County,Virginia (in Appalachia, outside Staunton) T h e s e e p i g r a p h s 1 r e p r e s e n t f o u r s t a n c e s toward the idea of Appalachia that I see at the beginning of each semester when I teach Introduction to Appalachian Studies. About a third or more of my students come to Blacksburg and Virginia Tech from the metropolitan areas of Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Northern Virginia (oriented to Washington , DC), plus a small sprinkling from metropolitan places outside Virginia. Like the first three students quoted above, metropolitan students often arrive with unexamined assumptions about the region—predominantly negative stereotypes, but also romantic views of Appalachia as a simpler, more wholesome place that is homogeneous in landscape and culture. About another third grew up in rural or urban parts of Appalachia.2 Many if not most of these students are well aware of negative stereotypes and have worked to distance themselves from poor whites who live in ramshackle houses (to paraphrase the fourth student above). But some of these students from the region eagerly seek support for their regional pride; they have generally learned, by way of self-defense, to talk about the region in glowingly positive terms not unlike the romantic stereotypes held by the metropolitan“outsiders.” The remainder of the students (fewer than a third) are mostly from farming areas, Intro to Appalachian Studies: Navigating Myths of Appalachian Exceptionalism 5 often in central or southern Virginia but also in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Their views are usually a complicated mix of the rural pride and rural shame that help feed both negative and positive visions of Appalachia. When I walk into a classroom, my foremost challenge as a teacher and a scholar is to stimulate critical thinking. In the Intro to Appalachian Studies classroom, this entails confronting both the negative and the positive assumptions that students bring with them. I have found that the positive assumptions are far more difficult to unseat. There are fewer materials available that complicate romanticizations of Appalachia, and students’ faith in them is more intransigent,more defensive and self-justified,and in some cases more psychologically necessary than students’ unexamined beliefs in negative stereotypes. My students’ “final reflection” papers (from which I take the majority of student quotations for this essay) have repeatedly offered testimonials about conversion experiences from bigotry to understanding, as well as declarations that students have learned to “refrain from stereotyping, not to judge people, and to think beyond superficial concepts.”3 Yet for several years I found that students initially holding romantic views often ended the semester clutching them with an unshakable ferocity. And some students who began...