NATCHEZ &045; The classrooms of the Natchez-Adams School district may have been empty Monday morning, but the district received its first homework assignment in the words of Clifton Taulbert.

And it wasn’t an easy assignment at that.

&uot;We must build a community,&uot; the Pultizer-nominated author and lecturer said during the annual teacher convocation.

More than 600 district teachers and staff members filled the Steckler Multi-Purpose Buidling Monday to begin the school year and to begin &uot;building community through education&uot; &045; the theme for the new year.

Admittedly, Taulbert said the task was not an easy one &045; but a vital one in which every member of the school district must play a part. &uot;We cannot be independent silos of excellence.&uot; he

said. &uot;That luxury is gone and will never show up again.

&uot;It is more than being out front, more than promotions, more than awards and titles.&uot;

Throughout the lecture Taulbert hammered home the importance of everyone working together, from the school board to the janitor.

Using the words of Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu Taulbert expressed the importance that everyone, every child and every teacher, is &uot;inexplicably linked in a bundle of life.&uot;

&uot;We must say, ‘I am human because I belong,’&uot; Taulbert said. &uot;These days it is easy to forget that. We are too busy thinking I am a principal, I am a board member. We are human first and foremost.&uot;

Weaving stories from his childhood in Glen Allan, Taulbert spoke of the importance of respect, affirmation and inclusion. In fact, Taulbert said some of the lessons he learned most were not from his teachers, but from the ordinary conversations of everyday life &045;

from the local iceman to his first employer.

&uot;As much as Wal-Mart sells, you cannot buy a gallon of respect. You can walk down every aisle you want, and you cannot by a carton of affirmation. You can’t download inclusion.&uot;