Imparting Knowledge to Another Generation is the Ultimate Success

Daily writing prompt

When you think of the word “successful,” who’s the first person that comes to mind and why?

View all responses

She was my 5th- and 6th-grade teacher. She taught us the words of the Black poets of the Harlem Renaissance so that we would realize that we were descended from people with great minds and creativity. She made us memorize the words of Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and James Weldon Johnson, with the appropriate emotions. No standing up and just reciting the words, you had to show that you felt them and that they were not in your mouth alone but in your heart and spirit.

It is funny that we don’t realize the significance of what teachers are doing at the time. We don’t comprehend that they teach us to think, feel, and see the world as it could be. The lessons she chose changed how we saw ourselves as black children in the South in the 1950s. As I prepare to attend the 55th anniversary of my high school graduation, I am amused that one of my fellow students remembers me from a part I played as a crone in one of the poems we learned.

When I think of success, I think of her and how she imbued in her students a love for words and a belief in their ability of words to change people’s hearts. As a blogger, I still strive to change hearts and instill a sense of value and worth in people through words in stories I write, hopefully painting pictures of love, perseverance, determination, and joy in living.