Searching your mind to decide which career path will be right for you can be very difficult. It took MISTER Dinkins until his junior year in high school to figure out what he would be. Growing up he found out that he had many talents but his first love was art. During art class, the teacher which was an African American male would give positive reinforcement to keep him motivated, and it worked. The teacher made him feel as if he could do anything, and that is when he decided he would like to make someone else feel that way as well. Not knowing where this career path would take him, from that day on his mission was to become a teacher, and to be a great teacher, a teacher that he wished all of his previous teachers would have been. During the end of his senior year in high school he completed the admission form to Claflin University and was accepted to attend. Claflin University is a small private institution located in Orangeburg South Carolina, right next to South Carolina State University. Even though he had dreams of going to some of the more well known Universities out of state, the lack of scholarship money would not allow him to do so. So there he was graduating from high school in May of 2000 and that is when his life began to change. MISTER Dinkins mentioned that he had many talents, and the one talent that overshadowed all other talents was the skill to rap and make hip-hop music.
Growing up as a young African American male during the 1990's, rap/hip-hop music was really becoming more and more popular. He learned he had a natural talent for rapping and had been rapping and making hip-hop music since the 7th grade. Right until the point where he graduated from high school MISTER Dinkins acknowledged that it was going to be a challenge to pay for college. With no scholarships insight he realized he would have to take out student loans if he wanted to attend college. Sitting at home during the summer before registration started at Claflin University MISTER Dinkins gets a phone call from a man named Dr. Roy Jones. Dr. Jones saw him on the list of Elementary Education majors and informed him about the Call Me MISTER program.
Call Me MISTER is a scholarship program that had been in development out of Clemson University that grants scholarships, book money, and stipends to African American males that want to teach in South Carolina. In the fall of 2000 it was the first year that Call Me Mister would become a reality with actual members joining the program. After hearing about this program he did not believe it at first but MISTER Dinkins then met Dr. Roy Jones for the first time. He knew that this program was perfect for him. He quickly signed up for it and that is when things began to get even more interesting.
In May of 2005 he graduated from a Claflin with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. He landed a job teaching fifth grade at an elementary school in Greenville S.C. During his undergrad years in college he got some taste of what teaching was like, but nothing can prepare you for the challenges you will face in your own classroom. He quickly acknowledged that becoming a teacher changes your whole lifestyle. "Your mind and body goes through different changes because in the classroom you are making countless decisions everyday".
He had a new found respect for all of his previous teachers because he was now one himself.
Call Me MISTER had instilled in him that African American Teachers were needed in the classroom and everyday he saw why that was so true. All of the pieces of his life were coming together and all of the talents he had, he now started to use them in the classroom.
The feeling of hope and doubt now became purpose and strength and for the first time in his life he knew what he was put on this Earth to do. "My life is only a bridge of knowledge and like any other bridge you get stepped on and neglected but the bridge must always stay intact for the knowledge to transfer from brain to brain".
MISTER Dinkins has been featured in many magazines, newspapers, Television broadcast, and Websites including……
Weekly Reader magazine (Career World),
Clemson World magazine,
Clemson University President’s Report
Claflin Alumni magazine,
Diversity in Education magazine,
Greenville News,
ABC world news,
ETV,
CBN News,
Hip Hop Ruckus.com,
I Got To Know.com
Menteach.org