{"id":26110,"date":"2019-04-05T14:55:06","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T18:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/news\/?p=26110"},"modified":"2019-06-01T08:05:13","modified_gmt":"2019-06-01T12:05:13","slug":"they-need-you-utc-grad-tells-school-of-education-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogarchive.utc.edu\/news\/2019\/04\/they-need-you-utc-grad-tells-school-of-education-students\/","title":{"rendered":"‘They need you,’ UTC grad tells School of Education students"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

UTC alumni Angela Davis signs copies of her children’s book, “If Rapunzel Were Rachelle,” in Derthick Hall.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

It took The Lion King<\/em> to convince Angela Davis to write a book.<\/p>\n

Her daughter, 11-year-old Aliyah, had been cast in the New York stage production of the famous Disney film. She began as an elephant in the Circle of Life scene but graduated to the role of Young Nala, the lioness and childhood friend of Simba, the eventual Lion King.<\/p>\n

So for a year, she and her mother lived in New. York.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so inspired by her I thought: I\u2019ve got to do something to inspire her now,\u201d said Davis, who earned a bachelor\u2019s in Human Ecology: Child & Family Studies PreK-4 in 2006 and a master\u2019s in Elementary Education: Reading Specialist in 2009. She\u2019s now at East Lake Elementary School.<\/p>\n

So she wrote If Rapunzel Were Rachelle,<\/em> a children\u2019s book that imagines: What if Rapunzel and her magic hair were African-American? It came out in 2018 on Keen Vision Publishing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was raising a girl and I was teaching in school where I was working with both boys and girls,\u201d the 36-year-old Davis said, speaking to a group of of whom were student majors in UTC\u2019s School of Education.<\/p>\n

One thing she noticed was a lack of confidence and self-esteem in the young girls. \u201cThey didn\u2019t value themselves enough,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her own daughter was one of those girls. Aliyah came to her one day and asked to have her hair straightened so she would be \u201cpretty,\u201d Davis recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re already pretty!\u201d she told Aliyah.<\/p>\n

To prove that beauty is not just a matter of straight hair, Davis shaved her head, which led to If Rapunzel Were Rachelle.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI started to grow it naturally and that kind of pushed me into: I wonder what this fairytale would look like if her hair looked like mine?\u201d<\/p>\n

She has a second children’s book in mind: If Cinderella was Sierra,<\/em> as well as projects to develop teaching tools based on her books for elementary schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do want you to know there\u2019s a sense of urgency out there that we don\u2019t hear about,\u201d she told the UTC students, noting that statistics show that a child who can\u2019t read at grade level by third grade is 13 times less likely to graduate.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re serving. They need you,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It took “The Lion King” to convince Angela Davis to write a book.<\/p>\n

Continue Reading <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1105,"featured_media":26117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_slider":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_featurette":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123864,3,8244,10170,64,8288,661],"tags":[83500],"class_list":{"0":"post-26110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-advancement-and-alumni","8":"category-community","9":"category-honors-and-awards","10":"category-lectures-and-speakers","11":"category-news","12":"category-school-of-education","13":"category-students","14":"tag-angela-davis","15":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\n'They need you,' UTC grad tells School of Education students | UTC News Archive: Jul 2007 - 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