Veteran Teachers
Veteran Delta teachers say they could use a little help from the parents.
I
By Cady Herring
t’s a blazing summer day outside of Clarksdale, where row after row of green cotton stretches to the horizon. Ida White stands stalk still. The 10-year old girl hurts all over. Her legs tremble. Her hands are numb. Her shirt is soaked. She doesn’t know if she can chop another row of cotton. She leans on her hoe, wipes her brow again and stares at the heavens. “Lord, there must be a better way than this.” And for Ida, there was. She found salvation in a classroom. In fact, Ida and many other veteran Delta teachers share a number of common traits. They often grew up in desperately poor homes where their parents preached the same gospel: Education is the ticket to a better life. They heard it over and over from illiterate sharecropper parents. Night after night, in low-slung, weatherbeaten shacks homes with cramped living rooms, unheated bedrooms and no indoor plumbing. Education is the ticket to a better life. THE MEEK REPORT 129
