Not long ago, my friend, Tillman Whitley, called and informed me of his termination. I was shocked beyond words. His loss to the Vicksburg Warren School District is a huge loss to children, immediate and immense and, for some, insurmountable.

I never had the pleasure of teaching with Tillman, but I’ve watched many times through many years as he taught children to read who’d been given up by the system. I watched as the system rewarded him with acknowledgment, recognition, and frequent requests to teach other teachers his ways; extend his mastery and skills to them so they, too, could teach children to read.

I’ve seen him teach other adults to read, some who’d worked their whole lives and retired and managed to keep this their secret. He taught children who were in 5th grade and older, but had never mastered the basics. In the place of his last assignment, I watched him devise a reading aesthetic and the most inviting classroom in the school filled with books, art and music that not only enticed and enchanted the children, but the other teachers as well. I knew 9- and 10-year-old girls who asked to attend his class in summer.

The “Special Prom” at Warren Central was Pamela Loving and Tillman Whitley’s invention. It was they who reminded us that “special children” were “seniors,” too, who should have a “prom” to remember. It was they who devised that tradition that continues to this day. And in fact, just a month or so ago, his friends there pressed me to make sure “Mr. Whitley” would come to the prom.

I cannot fathom what caused this, or why, with supposed devotion to children and concern that they cannot read, we think we can afford Tillman’s loss. There’s talk of an influx of younger teachers displacing older ones to accommodate budget restrictions. One almost hopes that’s the case. At least that would explain it.

But it will not justify it. Nor will it diminish the work of a good and generous man, contributor to years of teaching people to read in private tutoring sessions at WE CARE Community Services, at Warren Central and at Grove Street Alternative School. All are in Vicksburg, which finally fired him.

Yolande Robbins

Vicksburg