Editor’s note: February is Black History Month, and the Times-Review will feathre the contributions of some of Cleburne’s black residents each Monday of the month.
Her résumé is impressive.
An educator, therapist, dancer, minister and actor, Bonnie Hawkins-Jordan seems the kind of person who might live in Hollywood.
But she doesn’t. She lives in Cleburne, sharing her ministry with those around her any way she can.
“You can either flop around on the ground with the chickens, or you can fly with the eagles,” Jordan said.
Flopping on the ground is a concept Jordan left behind long ago.
As a youngster, she preferred playing football, she said. But when she met her mentor and teacher Bernice Pearson in sixth grade, she hung up her cleats, determined to change her life.
“She pushed us and particularly me because I had a hard time in math. She said there is always a way to become successful,” she said. “From a child that concept has stuck with me because she made an impression on me that no matter how difficult things get you don’t give up.”
Once Jordan started making A’s in school, she didn’t stop. She progressed through school, receiving a bachelor’s degree in speech language pathology and audiology, a master’s degree in language learning disabilities and a master’s degree in speech language pathology and audiology.
She was hired by Cleburne ISD straight out of graduate school and began her life in Cleburne.
She taught language learning disabilities in the school district for more than 20 years before venturing out on her own.
“In the process of doing that, I saw several needs of both adults and children,” she said.
So she began teaching her children at home with her husband, Dariel, who is also an educator, while keeping the needs of others in the back of her mind.
Parents heard what she was doing and wanted her to start teaching their children, and soon she founded a private school.
“We had no plans of starting a private school but it just grew out of my hands,” Jordan said.
The Learning Center of Hope offers one-on-one program for children who needed specialized attention.
Jordan ran the center for several years and still works as a contractor in speech language pathology for them.
She also works as needed at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Cleburne as a speech language pathologist and works with several private contracts.
Her free time allows her to share her passion of helping children learn in a visual manner.
“I believe in a visual interpretation for students,” Jordan said. “It is a way of impacting their learning. What they see, they remember.”
She serves as director of Project CA2N! for the East Cleburne Community Center.
Children are picked up from Santa Fe Elementary School after school, transported to Booker T. Washington Community and Recreation Center and tutored from 3:30-6 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
Jordan uses miming and puppetry to help put across her point to the students she teaches.
“As a visual performing artist in areas of puppetry and mime, I will go in full costume and become a character in a book, someone from history or even someone in present time,” she said.
Jordan also serves as the children and youth pastor at Crossroad Fellowship Seventh-day Adventist Church in Joshua.
“By being involved with that and the Learning Center of Hope, I take the ministry I do on the road to nursing homes and others,” she said. “I follow the same philosophy I’ve had for years. If you make learning fun they will retain it. You have to make it conducive to their learning styles.”
To spread her love for theatre, Jordan volunteers with Plaza Theatre and performs with a Fort Worth theatre group.
“It’s an effort to keep the arts alive and history of the African-American arts alive in lyrical form,” she said.
She was a longtime member of the Toastmasters, although she is not involved with them now.
Her résumé keeps growing as she adds more activities to her plate. She’s not looking to finish anytime soon.
Local News
Related Photos
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Bonnie Hawkins-Jordan uses puppets and mime to enhance the lessons she teaches as a tutor. The longtime educator is also a pastor of youth and children and is involved in theater in Cleburne and Fort Worth. Monica Green/Times-Review
Discussion
Educating through the arts
Teacher uses variety of methods to make her point
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