This weekend, we went to DC to attend the SOS Rally, Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action . Great speakers –
all of Andrew’s education heroes but I’ll let him chat about that if he wishes to do so. It was enlightening for me – I was excited and inspired and a little saddened and a lot sunburnt (ouch!) and have been since spending serious time thinking about school environments, what this generation of children might need vs. what they might be getting, and how that will influence us as soon to be parents of a school age child.
We are residents of NYC, Central Harlem is our neighborhood and we love it. School districting in this city is confusing at best and trying to learn about it is turning out to be quite an undertaking. Just like most places, the public schools fall within a wide spectrum – from amazing, progressive, and innovative to what appears (admittedly from our currently outsider perspective) to be depressing places driven by testing and unimaginative curriculums. I am sure everyone reading this* is thinking – ah, yes, of course, haven’t you been paying attention?!? – and I guess that I haven’t really been paying attention because I haven’t really
been impacted in an every day way. Up until now, it has simply sort of been abstractly upsetting to me that there is
a generation of children growing up mostly in learning environments that tend to squash intellectual curiosity and don’t celebrate a variety of talents/interests/gifts and don’t embrace the mosaic of human-ness.
I want our little fosterwee to go to a school that is challenging and exciting, not an anxiety inducing testing machine. A place where teachers are appreciated and feel appreciated and privileged to do what they do. A place where parents and students
get to know one another and form a true and committed community. Oh, and it would be nice if it were a place where they update the website regularly so that I can get good information and don’t have to read about the open house from 2009.
So, we’re seeking, researching, investigating the educational options for fosterwee to be. We’ll keep you posted.
*Is anyone reading this, by the way???
I’m totally reading this, and hanging on every juicy word. The writing is so powerful I feel like more than a reader — I feel like I’m living it.
I feel called out by the reference to out-of-date websites. I better get a blog post up soon…
Thanks to the FB shout-out, I just started reading this. If you’re ever curious on your readership stats and where the traffic is coming from, you can load in a tool to “count” your pageviews for you. There are a few out there. I use StatCounter.com. It tells me how many readers I’ve got, where they’re coming from (including IP address, which I can label to make it easier to find repeat visitors), which posts they read, and how long they came onto the site. Some of it’s just geek white noise, but if you’re trying to build readership – or are just curious – I think it’s cool. It let me know I had at least a N.C. audience, and strangely – that there’s been an upward trend in Latvian hits lately.
Thanks, Cynthia! And thanks for the link to your blog — it’s awesome. See you soon. Love, ARH
I’m reading intently, albeit 3 months late.