![]() The school's principal repeatedly chided students on their lack of learning and liberally used a leather belt to enforce discipline. ![]() The school system dictated strict adherence to a curriculum devoted to drilling "basics" into brains of students. Several students could not read a few could not count to 10. ![]() ![]() A once-prosperous oyster industry had collapsed several years earlier after a chemical plant polluted the beds, leaving the residents in a subsistence economy.Ĭonroy's class included children of middle-school age. In "The Water in Wide," Conroy, fired with reformist zeal, gave up his job as a high school teacher in Beaufort, S.C., to move to Yamacraw Island, inhabited predominately by impoverished African-American families, many of whom spoke a distinctive Gullah dialect. Sadly, the movie is not available in a DVD format compatible with U.S. This viewing prompted me to read Conroy's memoir. Based on Pat Conroy's memoir, "The Water is Wide," the movie portrayed the challenges of a young, white schoolteacher, played by Jon Voight, who volunteered in 1969 to teach in a two-room, all-black school on "Yamacraw Island," the fictional name given Daufuskie Island, now highly developed with golf courses, a residential club, vacation homes and docks for private yachts.īy chance, I saw the movie recently on a cable channel and found it as moving and provocative now as it was then. My two older sons and I saw the movie "Conrack" soon after its release in 1974. ![]()
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