The president-elect's new website asks everyone to "tell us your vision for the country." Here's what I submitted: Transform everything by teaching our children to be creative problem solvers, not through a broken education system that teaches compliance and deficiency, but through a new spirit of guided discovery with mentors devoted to kindling the spark within each child, so they may feel their own promise. This is truly the lever that will change everything, given a chance. When children learn to question, when they're taught confidence to solve problems with creativity, their lives become stories of opportunity and discovery....
dreaming in possibility Mon, 14-Jul-2008 (mscotti)
There is a community thriving in a place that drew myriad individuals with the hope of finding prosperity against all odds. They embraced a dream, a desire, and impulse for fulfillment in a town called Immokalee translated home. Imagine a map. X marks the spot. Here lies treasure. Some would say foolishness. No treasure lies there. It is a faulty figment of imagination. Others dream. This X holds promise. So against all odds people came to this place marked X on a map inspired by tales that they heard of employment, safety, new beginnings. Rivers were crossed. Fences climbed. Bushes...
a right to learn freely Thu, 10-Apr-2008 (teefal)
(from newsletter) A child has the right to their own wonder, to their enthusiasm, to their innate curiosity as they explore the world around them. A child has the right to ask questions and be heard, to hear answers from adults without impatience or contempt. A child has the right to create beauty as their heart compels them, to be encouraged in their community without fear of apathy or ridicule. A child has the right to learn freely. Too often we adults get caught up in ourselves, in the demands of each day as we try to survive. Nowhere is...
the hard combination Tue, 15-Jan-2008 (teefal)
They think they can tame you, name you and frame you Aim you where you don't belong They know where you've been but not where you're going And that is the source of the songs - john gorka...
the why of waveplace Thu, 20-Sep-2007 (teefal)
Somewhere along a distant shore a child walks with eyes that burn. She sees everything, from the mother dog and pup searching through garbage for food, to the tangle of fishing line in the sea grapes. She takes in the details, both beautiful and terrible. She braces through flood of feeling. At home, she cannot speak of it. At school, she fears response. In her heart, there is a passion for the world. Her talent is on the edge of immeasurable. Would that we could say to her, "Be true" ... to tell her this flood might someday sustain her,...
