My Mother was a teacher

And her dad and mother too

He coached Jesse Owens in high school

She helped the deaf to speak like you.

Mom asked if I'd read John Dewey.

Ever noticed children draw?

Their sketches aren’t just pictures

They’re maps of what they are.

And they take what they learn

And they take what they learn

And they take what they learn

And they draw portraits of angels.

And my sisters became teachers too

Taught children how to read

Tiny black kids in Valdosta

And island kids of Balinese.

And they're teachers teaching teachers

And they're sheppards of grazing souls

And they try to help the youngest

Help them rise up on their own.

And the kids took what they learned

And they took what they learned

And they took what they learned

And wrote their tickets to the world.

Me I taught in colleges

For a while after school

On Valencia, in San Francisco

And in a Tampa vestibule.

Don't think I did too much harm

I was too young to do much good

But the kids I met were honest

They conjured souls that stood.

And they took what they learned

And they took what they learned

And they took what they learned

And they made themselves a life.

People come to America

To study in our schools

Some are noisy but iridescent

Others quiet, loving and cool.

A couple came here to learn to fly

Where else would they go?

They came to where they'd learn quickly

They walked up to the pilot's door

And they took what they learned

And they took what they learned

And they took what they learned

And they burnt those buildings like a pair of fuses.

Got to outrun history

Not with threats held by knives.

This should be a land where empathy

Is nurtured in our lives.

Got a handful of bets this time around

Can't squander this chance to be

I'll cradle this nation to my breast

Relearn the reasons to be free.

And take what we've learned

And take what we've learned

And take what we've learned

Redraw this country, in our children's image, carefully.