Educating Mississippi Minds

Educating Mississippi Minds
By Cassandra Hawkins-Wilson
April 17, 2009

Transforming mindsmotivates me daily. Their minds, in the unique word,of their own understandingmust be groomed and cultivated.

I cannot remove the pressuresof inferiority, superiority, and minority.Yet,in the realm of educationI can belittle the prevalence ofignorance, while battling the understanding of the transformation into a unbelievable society of race and class discrimination.
Determined to eliminate the blasphemous stereotypes affiliated with dirt roads,paperless schools, and backwards thinkingI cringe tobe invisible as an educator.A small world of its own,Mississippi, doesn’t blow away the mindsof students to pave the longwinding dark dirt roadsmade of scorching hot red clay.

To wake up concernedabout the ever-evolvingbut slowly changingrevolution of racial tensions,I bathe my perceptions in the understanding of perseverance, confidence, and determination.
Removing the dead cells of stupidity,I fill the tiny stomachs and minds with educational solace,thrown among the remnants of a sometimes foreign placewithin a familiar home.

Black minds, throw upwhite words, white mindsthrow upblack words.Even though I am not deadthe phenomenal beginningsof a struggling existenceis almostburied among the solid pine coffinoverfilled withthe historic beliefs, memoriesof a struggling state.

I live to educate
I move to educate
I believe to educatethe minds inthe unforgotten world unique toMississippi.