Is the Caged Bird Singing?

Maya Angelou was a literary hero for me.  Her book "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" had an impact on me that I am still learning to appreciate to this day.  While I recognize that she was advanced in age, it is hard to believe that such a presence is gone from the earth (at least in its physical form).  Seeing the various pictures floating around that shared her quotations and insights, I am in awe of the wisdom that she both possessed and shared.  I also feel like she wouldn't have wanted it as hers.  She understood that part of the beauty in gaining, whether it be wisdom, abundance, wealth, etc., was to share with others and help them to gain as well.
I was having a conversation this morning at one of my jobs about a system in place in some of the schools that my co-worker is acquainted with.  Apparently, because of pressure on the administration, teachers have been made to change grades and to pass students who were otherwise failing in order to meet numbers for graduation.  Additionally, teachers have been known to give answers to SOL tests while the students are taking them in order to make the stats.  Students were placed in AP classes, because a certain number of students were needed in order to keep the school at a certain level.  Never mind the fact that AP classes are difficult and should probably be taken by people who actually want to do the work, or that people should actually learn the material needed in life so that when they finish school, they can be successful.  No!  What matters is the numbers and checking a box on a government form so that the school can continue to "function" and the administration doesn't have to make any real changes or reconsider how education is failing students by the hundreds.    
Why do these two paragraphs relate?  Because as I reflect on all that she did and I think about the needs in our world, generation, and community, I am charged to take my place and to follow in her footsteps.  I have always looked up to her, and in seeing that she didn't even have a college degree, yet she learned 5 languages and became a professor... why do I feel the need to gain that much more education?  I'm not saying that school is a bad thing, and I am pondering it to continue my journey and my dreams.  I am wondering if I should have the same attitude as James Cone who basically decided that since people were dying in the streets, he needed to take the degree he had and make change from that lens.  
I'm not sure.  All I know is that communities and even a generation is dying, and we fail to see or care because of our own lives, insecurities, riches, and the like.  Whether they are killed by their own apathy, by the patriarchy that drives them to murder when they are rejected, by their own hands when hate and discrimination make more sense than love and compassion (even in the face of disagreement), by systemic issues that use people as numbers and discard them as the same, by the pursuit of material wealth that is choking the nation's soul, or any number of other ills that plague our society, the death would be a devastating one if our eyes were open to it... especially since  part of us is dying with them.  
These caged birds are singing, dancing, jumping up and down, crying for help - for someone to love them, to teach them, to empower them, to invest in them, to give them more than their dysfunctional families and failing schools ever cared to.  Will you hear their song?  Will you hear the song within you that is the answer to one of the many problems that the world faces?  No, you may not win a presidential medal of honor, but if you can positively impact one person on your journey and create a resurrection of someone's dry bones, you stand on the shoulders of great women like Maya Angelou and become the Phenomenal that you were created to be.


R.I.P. Angel Maya Angelou