Generational Impact – What is Your Legacy?

By Dr. Marcia Davis-Dawkins

February was Black History Month in some countries, including the United States of America. Throughout the month, time was set aside to highlight and celebrate some notable history makers in our lives. At times, it seems as if we only celebrate certain people while omitting others. Maybe we can’t celebrate everyone, but at least highlight a new person or two, and not continue to celebrate the same every single year. Maybe we should celebrate people who make a difference in our lives daily and not simply wait for February. This could, no doubt, help students to learn to celebrate and feel good about themselves.

It really takes a village to raise a child and even though some period don’t believe that we can and should say anything to children in the 21^st century, it really makes a difference when you do have certain people in the village who are still willing. A few months ago, I lost a colleague, a friend and a mother figure to me. It was sudden and unexpected. This loss hit, dare I say, “Like a ton of bricks!” I knew she was sick, but I kept praying for the best, or plainly put, for her to come through, I believed she would recover and come back to work where we would sit and exchange wise and pleasant talks about human nature and how we could help shape some of our troubled students. The weight from the bricks sent me in a downward spiral because I soon realized that she was really gone and we weren’t able to talk again. Needless to say, I miss her warmth, her wise talks, her understanding and calm sense or twist on a bad situation? Well, even when things just seemed unbearable, this friend/colleague/mom would speak wisdom into my heart and make me realize that “we must look on the bright side of life.” In fact, I can envision her sitting up in her chair, moving her neck from side to side and then saying, “Dr. D, let’s see what this means and how we can get another perspective.” It is as if changing her stance and moving her neck were the signal that she was getting more wisdom to pass on to me.

This person I cannot claim for myself, because she represented the same “idol” to so many other persons. Truth be told, she was like that to so many other people and, in particularly, to the students at the school where we worked. Students would get in trouble and be sent to the principal’s office and she would be a ray of sunshine to the students. As a matter of fact, it seems as if some students wanted to get in trouble and be sent to the office so they could get some of the “good wisdom talk.” The fact that she was able to mold and mentor them simply made my heart melt, and it didn’t matter who the student was, she saw potential, possibility, and promise in that student. Her calm spirit, her presence, her elegance, her aura, her demeanor were evident when she was around.

At school, she was honored during Black History Month, and while this effort was laudable, I would propose a somewhat different approach. She was an ardent proponent of the Amistad initiative and pressured the school board to make it a reality. If we truly want to honor her legacy and continue her work, we must TEACH WHAT SHE PREACHED.  In place of a memorial that will come and go, ensure that black history is an integral part of the curriculum, all year long, not limited to a shallow exercise during February and then abandoned. Reject merely teaching about historical “ firsts,” such MLK, Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, etc. While every student should, of course, recognize these people, limiting lessons to this leads students to believe that Black History consists of a few heroic characters. Focus on and highlight the often-unacknowledged contributions that so called “ordinary” people of color make EVERY day. In doing so, her passion lives on, long after the plaudits and commendations of a memorial fade.

It is my aim that I am able to leave a legacy that would make this person proud and that people will remember me for my sense of peace and kindness. That somehow, I am known for the fruit that I grew based on the seeds that were planted or sowed. Did I spread good news or spread love and peace just like my former colleague? Did I spread the good news to my students or people that I meet, to imply that they were special in their own special way/s?

I, without a doubt, want to hear the words as quoted below:

“If it falls to our luck to be street-sweepers, sweep the streets like Raphael painted pictures, like Michaelangelo carved marble, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, and like Beethoven composed music. Sweep the streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth would have to pause and say, “Here lived a great street sweeper.” ~Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressing the Jamaican crowd in the National Stadium in 1965.

(Source: Dr. Rebecca Tortello, Pieces of the Past ~ The Gleaner)

I want to be the sowers of great seeds so others reap beautiful and tasty fruits.