My sister is a teacher, and she is apprehensive. She dreads the day, soon coming, when she will have to go back to school to try to impart some measure of information into the thick skulls of her young charges.

While I would not want to be in her shoes for anything in the world, I also have to remind her that she has a unique and awesome task and responsibility. To have the chance to spend a year in the life of a youngster -- to be allowed to impress upon him and to impart to him a measure of information -- is awesome.

So many of us whine about the failures of our schools, in particular our black schools, and many families that can, take their children out of their neighborhood schools and send them to schools where the white folks are.

I understand the temptation to do that. In this country it seems that money and better teachers tend to follow the white folks.

Yet there are many dedicated and brilliant educators who remain in our neighborhood schools, willing to teach the children from low-income homes. Children who don't have the best supplies. Children from single-parent homes who perhaps have been neglected educationally.

My sister is one of those teachers.

So, my sister, I would like to say this to you: You are too young to remember when schools were segregated. Long before computers and cell phones and blackberries, there were educators who cared.

Mrs. McCoy, Mrs. Simpson, Mr. Moody --teachers who took the little they had and determined to teach us what they knew. Lessons about history, math and English, sure. Also lessons about how to be young ladies and men. Lessons about how to carry ourselves in the world. Lessons about etiquette.

They taught us about being proud and shamed us when we did less than our best. They made us write essays, yes. They also made us write "I will not ... chew gum, use bad words... forget my homework ... come to class late... sleep in class..." 500 times.

Teachers in those days didn't get rid of the class clown by sending him to the front office to languish. They made him sit in a special desk, in the front of the class, with his back to the others so that he wouldn't be distracted and could learn. I spent at least one day in that chair.

I remember teachers back then ignoring my waving, know-it -all-hand to call on someone else for the answer. She wanted to make sure everyone was learning.

I remember teachers paying for school lunches for students they knew were hungry and whose parent couldn't pay – ’till free lunch was approved for that school year. I was given lunch on some occasions.

Teachers back then knew they had to stand in the breach if our children were ever to compete in this world, and they took what few tools they had and used them mightily to make a difference in the lives of black children.

That same determination is sorely needed today. I challenge you, sister, to stand in the gap. Teach with all of your might. Find supplies. Make supplies. Borrow supplies.

Our children are dying, academically and physically, due to neglect, poverty and illiteracy. You can make a difference. Yours may be the only voice a child hears that tells him he can learn. You might be the only one who shows a young lady how to succeed.

Teach them that it doesn't matter where they come from if they know where they are going

Make it your goal that your students will remember you years from now. Let it be said that "Mrs. Robinson taught me English and how to be a young man or young woman." Let it be said that "Mrs. Robinson taught me math and to believe I could succeed." That will be your finest reward.

I challenge you to, once again, join the ranks of the other educators, past and present, who took up the mantle and taught our children.

Where would we be without all of you?
***
D. Barbara McWhite grew up in York County, S.C., and lives in Orange Park, Fla., with her husband and cat.
 

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