Millvale Community Library as a Model for Pittsburgh Public Schools

Kidsburgh: Destination Millvale from Sprout on Vimeo.

Do you know about the Millville Library? I think of it as the Little Library That Could. The first library in Millville, it was created by members of its own community. It offers a donated collection, computers, a really beautiful space complete with coffee and tea for purchase, a professional librarian, a community garden with a water garden in the back, and a Maker Space, staffed by professionals by the Pittsburgh Children's Museum.

The MakerSpace, when I saw it, was housed in the coolest wooden cabinet on wheels. It had drawers that pulled out to reveal wiring, soldering irons, switches, cogs, wheels, bobbins, scissors and thread for the sewing machine, LED lights, fabric, clay, and enough who-zits and what-zits to warm a mad scientist's heart. There were complimentary parts to the MakerSpace: a floor to ceiling whirling set of bins that held other stuff for building, creating, imagining and reimagining, for iterations of STUFF that kids could make.

The best part of all of this, of course, was the wry and funny professional guy from the Children's Museum who came out once or twice a week to teach kids how to use iPads and arduinos and LED lights and wiring and switches to make robots that drove, turned, lit up. On other days, kids learned other skills so that their imaginations were linked to real skills, so they could build things that really did drive, light up, turn, speak, obey commands, do work, be useful, or just become the thing the kid wanted it to be.

Here's my dream: Let's have a MakerSpace in each Library in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. Let's have our Pittsburgh Public Schools decide that we are ALL going to embrace STEAM, and:

1. Become a District of First Choice by:
A. Partnering with Pittsburgh assets to empower teachers with best practices. That begins with Pittsburgh teachers as assets. Therefore:
B. Libraries are the places in schools best suited and most easily prepared to be transformed into Learning Commons. Learning Commons contain the most up to date information and technology. They also lend themselves to collaboration, which is the best model for STEAM education.  Since the Library is the natural place to center STEAM education as a school-wide model, start by placing a high-quality, licensed and qualified professional Librarian in each Pittsburgh Public School.
C. Work with funders of all kinds to create school libraries as Learning Commons, complete with all resources needed, including updated book collections.
D. Here's the MEAT:

HAVE THE BEST TEACHERS IN BUILDINGS DO THE PD they need to do for each other. Have the best teachers in buildings go to other buildings and do PD for other buildings. Have the Children's Museum embed teaching artists in each Learning Commons to teach kids and Librarians STEAM skills. Keep PD dollars local, for God's sake. Why aren't there teaching artists from the Warhol, the Museums of Art, Natural History, all of the Universities and Libraries in every Pittsburgh Public School? Let's skip the blah blah blah about red tape, its complicated, etc. These things, like all things, are personality driven. Take two people-oriented ego-less, kid-first professionals and put them together and amazing things happen.

I know amazing things happen because I've been blessed to be part of amazing things. The Manchester Miracle was created by Yinzercation Nation and Manchester residents and Neil Gaiman and Laurie Halse Anderson and Pittsburghers. Pittsburgh City Paper writer Allan Smith featured our book drive in a really wonderful piece in this week's Edition of the City Paper. People make beauty happen because they believe in equity. We can create the conditions we want to see for Pittsburgh's school children if we want to. Reality is just our own creation. Local PD. All that's beautiful, strong and good channeled into Pittsburgh Public Schools. Less canned curricula, purchased at great expense from money grubbing multinational businesses with little interest in our kids. Like Millville's  Little Library That Could, PPS can rise from where it is, to be for the whole community, on a 'mission of positive change."

The Outlaw Rides Again

Two years after I wrote this, I accepted a high school Librarian position at Perry Traditional Academy on the North Side of Pittsburgh. Who'dve thunk. I guess you can't keep a good outlaw down.

Back in the educational world, things look quite different. Thanks to Jessie Ramey, Kathy Newman, Pamela Harbin and all the other outlaw King-Makers at Yinzercation, we have a new, pro-public education Governor, swept into office by a blistering roar of angry parents, furious at the starvation of their kids' schools. Governor Wolf promises to reverse his predecessors's grotesque $1 billion cuts to public schools. He promises to bring back arts, music, and yes, SCHOOL LIBRARIES. See this:

The funds are not rolling yet, and my job at Perry is not due to the new Governor. However, it is nice to come back to education at a moment when things are looking up.

I have been at Perry for about two months now. My students make me laugh every dang minute. They are hilarious, and tender and sweet and gifted. Together, we have begun a book drive to diversify our book shelves. We hooked up with the national #WeNeedDiverseBooks folks and tweeted out messages. Sue Kerr, the North Side and national blogger, wrote a great piece about that effort. See more on that here. We were featured on the front page of the Pittsburgh Public Schools website. Today, the Pittsburgh City Paper came out to interview us about the book drive. To date, we have received 63 books from our Amazon Wish List. We hope to get more. The book shelves at Perry are deceptively full. What stocks them are books that desperately need to be updated. To those who have donated, we say thank you. You are making a difference in children's lives. You should know that kids attack the new books like freshly baked muffins.

What an exciting time! What a great place to be in! Much different than two years ago, when as a sub, I was ready to leave education forever. But outlaws aren't easily satisfied. Lord knows I'm not. Not when kids such as Pittsburgh's languish in inequitable situations. Let me tell you a story.

There is a kid at Perry who watches Youtube videos at home of people playing the piano. He carefully watches where they put their fingers as they play. Then this kid comes into school, sits down at one of our school pianos-- and plays what he watched. Really.

What the video above shows is the kid in question playing on one of the three pianos in the Library. My friends and colleagues, Gerald Watkins, the Choir Director and Music ITL, and Richard Lane, the Instrumental Teacher at Perry, had them moved up to the Library with my blessing. Libraries are workshops. They are places for kids to create content, not be containers to be filled. In the age of the Read-Write Web, kids need their school libraries to function as labs. Now kids such as this one have one more place to practice music in school. One more place to build the day in creative joy.

Which brings me to the reason I'm still so unsatisfied. The wonderful young City Paper writer and I spoke today of the Observatory that used to exist at his high school in Mt. Lebanon. You know, an observatory-- for observing the STARS. It worked.

Television stations, raku ceramics studios, oil painting, Latin, robotics, wood shops, Mac labs with Garage Band, etc., Maker Spaces, and mostly-- people. Enough people. Enough Librarians, library aides, books, music teachers, social workers, counselors, teachers, etc. to enable kids to have small classes, and their needs met. These things exist in schools for some kids in the Pittsburgh area, and we know which kids. Just not my kids at Perry.

It's great to have donated books and pianos in the Library. It's a joyous and optimistic start. But nobody with daily access to kids like these would dream that it is enough. Our kids need to have every opportunity, plain and simple. And what drove Jessie Ramey and Yinzercation to get a new Governor elected was a lot of work. A lot of funky, schlepping, sweating, on the bus, sign making, phone call making, unglamorous, risky work. That's what it takes to make change. And that is what I'm calling for when I say-- we Pittsburghers need to choose equity. We need to call our Republican congressfolk and demand they vote for arts and libraries and special ed teachers and counselors and film studies in schools. We must demand they work with this new Governor. And we must demand the new Governor stay on track with what he was put into office to do.

The viral book drives I have been lucky enough to be involved with have shown that Pittsburghers believe in and want equity for children, all of its children. I know that as surely as I have opened a zillion Amazon boxes and cataloged those books. That is why I won't be satisfied-- and I know Pittsburgh won't be satisfied-- until all of the things and mostly, staff and services that matter so much for kids' success--- exist in each Pittsburgh school.

It's either equity-- or more of the gun violence and more jails full of children who could be pouring out art from their fingertips and hearts and souls into the very air we breathe. Like the smokestacks used to pour out smoke. Choose, Pittsburgh. Equity for our school kids. Or jail. For our kids. Each one. Like that child, the one at the piano.

Post script: Pittsburgh Public Schools offers free music lessons this summer for 5th-8th graders!  Call Dr. Kymberly Cruz at 412-529-3518, or sign up at http://www.pps.k12.pa.us/Page/4427

#WeNeedDiverseBooks

"You have to go to SCHOOL to be a Librarian??" is not a unusual question. Always makes me smile. Nobody knows what school librarians do. Our work is largely invisible. We are the only teacher in a school who must, upon being hired, have a Master's degree. Most of us simultaneously earn our K-12 teaching certification with our Master's, but in Pittsburgh, we are categorized as "Non-Teaching Professionals." Those semantics cause a kind of cognitive dissonance.

School librarians do teach. We teach how to build a website, a resume, a bibliography, a stop-motion animation film, a book trailer, how to find vetted information. I'm co-teaching four classes right now with the Head of our English Department. It is divine. It allows me time with each individual student in her classes. I know all their names, and I am beginning to know each of them as people. I am starting to know how to teach each kid-- what motivates them, how to engage them, what they like and don't like.

Why would it matter if a school Librarian knows the kids? Because unlike every bespectacled, bun wearing, shushing, cardigan-rockin' Librarian stereotype you've ever seen, the Librarian needs to be the absolute center of the school. She has to know her kids because what they think, want and want to know are the heart of her work. THEY ARE her work. She has to build her collection around them. Knowing their learning styles, reading levels, interests and goals directly inform her decisions about how to plan lessons and how to use her book budget to purchase resources.

That's why I always ask kids for their input on collection development. If kids can't have a say about what goes on the shelf, why would they care about what's there? Kids at Perry Traditional Academy have not been shy about sharing what they want to read. And they want books and materials that reflect realities they live and know. They want DIVERSE BOOKS. They want books about African-American, urban kids living real lives. They want books about queer kids, pregnant kids, kids in jail, kids in foster and Ward homes, LGBT kids. They want nonfiction about wrestling and football. They want LOTS of comic books and graphic novels and manga and anime. They want books about intellectually gifted Black kids who make it. They want all of these things alongside the canon of Western literature, which they also want.

Working together, the staff, students and myself have started the Perry Traditional Academy Amazon Wish List. It's purpose is to DIVERSIFY our Library shelves to reflect our interests, lives, reading interests and ourselves. #WeNeedDiverseBooks definitely applies to us, and we have adopted it. I hope you might consider helping us by going to the Amazon Wish List and purchasing a book. We are the only high school on Pittsburgh's North Side. We plan on a massive revitalization of our school and by extension, our community. And it might just happen through our school library.

Now some folks might say--KIDS deciding what goes in the school library??? Clutch your pearls, right? Disorder, chaos, ruin and ruination!! Next thing you know, Fifty Shades of Gray will be in every school library!! Wrong. No need to run around screaming. Working with the school Librarian is key. A librarians' goal is to match the right resource to the right purpose. Fifty Shades might be great for a public library. A school Library is different. We collect books that connect to curriculum, build context and fluency, all while engaging kids.

Diversifying children's publishing is a national movement. Let me explain why. Try pulling a Cinderella picture book out of a fairy tale section for your Hispanic niece. Chances are good that the illustration on the cover will not resemble your little girl. And while we can blah blah blah about yeah, but Cinderella is actually a European fairy tale so why are you pulling the race card?-- we would be factually as well as morally wrong. The first known version of Cinderella is Chinese, circa 618. The story didn't show up in Europe until around 1634. Children of all races need to see themselves represented in stories. It shows them what is possible. That they are capable of transformation. That wishes can come true. That there is reason to hope.

That is the work of #WeNeedDiverseBooks, the movement begun this school year by children's authors Ellen Oh and Malinda Lo. Their discussion at a conference about the lack of diversity in children's publishing started others talking. Soon those discussions started folks organizing. We need to get all kids (and all people) reading about the lives of folks who don't look like them-- as well as demand that the publishing world represent all children. This is a pathway to peace and proper citizenship. Purchasing books written about diverse kids is a way to support this kind of movement. It sends a message to the publishing world that an all-white reading list is no longer acceptable. We want our kids to read for fun, for transformation, for hope, for change, to become more thoughtful, creative, broad and humane people. Help make that happen. Bring diversity to the world's book shelves. Share some with Perry's Library. With Love. Always.

UPDATE! Sue Kerr of Pittsburgh Lesbian, wrote a great article about our effort!! Check out her article at: Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents


why-hasnt-the-number-of-multicultural-books-increased-in-eighteen-years/

Goodbye to my Children and to T

It took me a year to get him to speak to me. He would come in, slight, well, no, slight is far too polite a word. The child was just tiny, tiny for his age, short, light, lithe. He was a master of the slip in and slip out, slip around, wait, watch, absorb. He wouldn't speak to me or to any other adult. He just came in, silent, got on the computers, played games.

In a picture book, T could be a raggedy Pirate alley cat with one eye missing and a torn ear. Every day there was a new scratch, scar, bloody mark or piece of something missing. One day he came in with a truly alarming open wound on his forehead. Probably needed stitches. No stitches happened, so it closed on its own somehow and formed a dark brown mark to join all of the others on his wide forehead. His eyes were wide set and wide open. Not much missed this boy. He was 10 when I met him.

T was like most of the other kids. He showed up as soon as the Library opened during the summer months and stayed until it closed. Hot Cheetos, bought at Ms. Wong's, the Korean store owner across the street, crinkled suspiciously under the keyboard for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He hated programs, wouldn't do art, wouldn't engage. But he did watch. He watched as I painted with A. He watched as I verbally wrastled with Z, laughing and bugging, thumb wrestling, which always made Z so mad. I have freaky double jointed thumbs and I cheat. I beat Z every time, which was a big deal. Z was tall, popular, athletic, magnificently beautiful, beloved of the community. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see T smiling as Z howled when he had to conceed thumb wrestling defeat.

After six months of hovering, begging to join programs, trying to engage him anyway I knew how, I resorted to all out frustrated mania. I began bawling out T's name every time he came into the library like he was Norm on Cheers. I told him that if he didn't say Hi to me when he came in to the Library I would give him "the treatment." Not one to take too many chances with nutsy white women, apparently, T began muttering "Hi Ms. S" when he came into the Library. I shouted out responses as if the Epoch of the Golden Alien Monkey Kings had begun and T's greeting had announced their arrival.

And then he tried it...he decided to see what "the treatment" was. He didn't say hello. And I was on that boy like white on rice. I leaped to my feet. I smooshed him. I hugged him. I swarshed him around. I washed his face with my hands and pretend soap and water. I did crazy bugs and ants with my long nails in his hair and all over his shoulders and arms. I schmongered him all over the place until his was dizzy and he yelled, "HI, MISS S.!!!" I threw professionalism and the child's right to his space and all that out the window.

And after that he talked to me sometimes. He always said Hi Ms. S. unless he wanted a treatment, which he did, at least once a week. He came to programs and watched and ran away. He let me feed him sometimes, but not often. He liked the food he liked, and he had his weekend backpack of food from school, which he asked if he ought to try to line up and sell on the cheap, marketplace style, in the Library. He matter of factly told me that he is messed up, can't read, is in a special classroom and still can't read. He never lied. EVER. T was completely honest. Always. Even when he knew it would get him in trouble.

And tomorrow I have to tell him that I have taken another job and that I very likely will never see him again. I've thought about how to say goodbye to this boy, the one I love the most, out of all the children at my Library whom I love. How to say that I wish I could have helped him be a better reader. How to say that even though I am one of many people who comes in and then disappears forever-- that he impacted me-- that he will stay with me--- that he is a Young King, an important and beautiful person, that he matters. That his life is precious. That I value him. That he is valuable to others and vital to the world. That all that time spent in making him acknowledge me wasn't about me but about him-- helping him know that he is not invisible.That he is seen and known.

I'm leaving the pubic library to go back to the Pittsburgh Public Schools to be a high school Librarian. I am going to bring the gospel of love with me-- to remember to try hard to be the adult I needed as a kid, wherever I land. And so I go on-- as always, heart full of all my children at the Hill District Library forever-- and especially with that boy-- that one-- that boy I made say hello. T. My Pirate Alley Cat, prayers for peace and blessings. For him and for all of us.

Homeless

He comes in swinging his arms crazily. He throws his coat on the floor. No backpack, so a notice for parents, a fund raiser form, a page of homework join his coat. They float around the hood and arms like snowy fallen leaves. His eyelashes are so long and thick and curly. He is mesmerizing to look at. Dark skin, silky curling hair close to his little head. He is eight.

He's off. Really off today. He avoids sustained eye contact and discussion. He bugs the other kids. Calls them names under his breath, sits too close when they play video games, shouts insults when they lose a player or miss a point. They are annoyed. He's on their last nerve. I call him over to me. I ask him what's going on. Nothing. Nothing. That kid called me a name. He said I'm HOMELESS!

To my shame, I respond, "Well-- ARE you?" He says, quickly, NO! So I respond, "Well-- then who cares what he says? You know what's true. Ignore him." Oh, stupid, stupid adults. As if IGNORE ever works, is even possible. As if  being called homeless by another kid is just any insult-- as if it's random or baseless.

He's even more agitated. I'm annoyed-- busy. Freshly back, emails demanding important answers and reports and statistics are weighing on me. He seems babyish to me, spoiled, demanding attention. It's because he's so beautiful, I think. He's used to women fawning over him, being easy and indulgent. I need to make him take responsibility for his actions, hold him accountable.

He's yelling again, and this time the other kids are starting to threaten him. I call him over. He immediately starts to cry. I can't stop admiring his beauty. It's ridiculous. But truly, this child is so incredibly lovely. He is crying, tears coming fast. I hunch down to him. HE SAID I'M HOMELESS! He shouts in my face. HE SAID I'M HOMELESS! I straighten up. I ask him for his Mom's phone number. "This has gone on long enough," I say. "Enough. You need to get a hold of yourself. Come on. This isn't how we behave. Not in the library. Not here." His shoulders start to heave. I remember his last name and find his number. I call Mom. I tell her he's having a bad day. It's just a bad day for him. He's usually wonderful. But today he needs to go home and calm down. Mom thanks me for calling and says somebody will come to get him.

He is LIVID. HE has to LEAVE?? THAT KID CALLED ME HOMELESS! I DIDN'T DO NOTHING!!!! I sharpen my voice, threaten him, say, "if you don't come over by the window and sit with me right now, and wait for your Mom with me, I'll have to tell her you can't come back for a couple of days. Come on, pal. Come with me. I want you to come back tomorrow when you are having a good day. You know I love you. Come on."

He flounces over to the window, tears, anger taking him over. He's almost beyond the point of control now. We sit in the window seat. I try to calm him down. "You'll come back tomorrow, bud. It's going to be okay." And that's when he tells me that they have been kicked out of their home. That dad assaulted somebody.

An adult collects him, calls me Ma'am, thanks me profusely. I'm profoundly embarrassed. I'm not Ma'am. I don't deserve thanks. But I don't say that-- I say, "Thank you so much for coming to get him. He'll have a better day tomorrow."

And then tomorrow comes and he's the first in the library. Alone, coat on the floor, papers strewn across the carpet, he says somebody called CYF and they have to go to the shelter. He is quieter, chewing his collar. He won't play the game of dreidel I play with 6 other kids. He stays on his computer, or hangs around a little girl, another agent provocateur, they like each other. He's not shouting today, his arms aren't swinging. But he's devolving just the same. He baby talks. He can't find words to respond. He's furious that I won't be at work tomorrow. Do you have a doctor's appointment? he asks. "No," I tell him. Then WHY? I explain when I work Fridays I don't work Saturdays, and the opposite. He is not absorbing that. WHY? he wants to know. WHY?

The evening wears on. Finally, we are closed and he's still here. I make another call to Mom, and this time she answers. She tells him to walk somewhere. It's dark and cold. I make him zip up his coat. I pull his hat over his ears. Pulling the hat down is the only thing I have truly done to help him in the last two days. And he's gone. Out the door, while the Pittsburgh skyline blazes red and pink and sugar orange. I lock the doors and look for him, but he's melted into the night, with his coat zipped, and his hat pulled down tight, and all of his school papers leaving a trail behind him like glowing pebbles on a forest floor.

Note: identifying details have been changed to protect the identity of the child.

In honor of Malala-- Nobel Prize Laureate

 

Malala Yousafzai, the world's youngest Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, is possibly one of the most inspiring, strongest women in the world. She faced down the Taliban, weathered a bullet to the head, came back and recovered-- and then told them, "I am stronger than fear." She's not even 20.

As a person who recently had a relatively minor brain surgery-- no Taliban bullets here!-- I can nevertheless tell you that surgery on the head is no joke. She was brave before they shot her. She was brave during her recovery. And she's brave now. In her honor, here are a few quick book recommendations about strong girls in adverse situations. Both of them are written in prose poetry, and both celebrate courage, determination, and love.

The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney.

 

Amira is a Muslim girl who lives happily with her family in the Darfur region of Southern Sudan. Their family has a deep connection and love for the land they farm and the animals they tend. Amira is very close to Dando-- her father-- and Muma--her mother. When her baby sister Halima is born crippled, Amira takes it upon herself to watch over and guide her. The two sisters are great friends.

 

Then the Janjaweed, government forces in the civil war in Sudan, descend on the village, burning and murdering. Dando is killed in front of Amira's eyes. Muma and her daughters flee on foot to a Displaced Person's camp, where they try to exist in their deep grief and shock. Amira loses the ability to speak, until a visiting teacher gives her a red pencil. Amira draws her father, her goats, her village, and the English letters she learns, one by one. As she gives form to the trauma and loss she has experienced, her voice returns, and Amira decides she must go to school. For her sake-- and for Halima's.

 

This book is exquisitely written in short prose poems. It is illustrated throughout in Amira's drawings, done by illustrator Shane Evans. This is a quick, affecting read that will leave you with wonderful visions of African moons, multicolor toobs (pronounce TOE-B), the Muslim attire the women wear, and possibilities within hardship. It is studded with beautiful Arabic terms and includes a glossary and pronunciation guide.

 

 

 

The other book I recommend is Serafina's Promise by Ann Burg.

 

  Serafina works alongside her mother on their family farm in Haiti. She travels far for heavy buckets of water to feed their struggling hillside crops, and helps to care for the family. Serafina's mother lost a child-- Serafina's baby brother-- who died of starvation soon after his birth. Serafina vows to work hard enough to help the new baby her mother is expecting survive, but her secret hope is to become a doctor. She wants to be able to heal children who suffer and who are sick, so that no child has to experience what her baby brother Pierre endured. There was a beautiful Haitian woman doctor who tried to save Pierre, who deeply impressed Serafina. More than anything, she wants to go to school.

 

But school is not free in Haiti, and tuition and school uniforms are beyond her family's reach. When the earthquake destroys their farm, Serafina struggles to find the doctor she admires so much to save her mother and the new baby. This book, again, written in short prose poems, spangled with Haitian Creole, shimmers with beauty. The characters' love and devotion to each other, Serafina's courage and determination, and ultimate triumph are super rewarding to read.

 

 

 
 
 
 
\

 

How I Breathe

Breathe them in
each brown cheek
each braid, each small twist with bright ballies on the ends
each long-lashed big brown eye.
Breathe them in.

Let them find their way from your eyes, your nose
your mind
down your nervous system
down your blood stream
pump through your heart
into your tiny cells. Magically, they live there now.
They are yours.

Breathe. Breathe them in.

Breathe their questions and their answers
Breathe their coats, thrown on the library floor.
Breathe the way I feel when they play video games I wish they wouldn't
Axes and guns and knives pooling blood on the screen
Breathe in my questions, my discomfort.

Shout their names when they arrive
Bug them mercilessly
attack if they don't greet me back
hug them too much, smoosh them, spin them all around.
Dizzy, discombobulated, grinning, they mutter,
"Hi, Ms. S."

Watch them. Watch them build. Watch how the figure it out.
Admire the way, missing marbles, they use mini-Legos on the toy
making something new out of what was broken.
Watch how they answer back, smartly
refusing to take shit. Or how they retreat, quietly,
building an inner world, a safe place, nurturing hurt.

Fuss at them. "We don't say the "N" word. EVER."
"We don't use the "B" word. EVER."
"What do you mean you don't have homework?"
"Let's do your homework."
"Go get your movies at home and bring them back. Right now."
"Zip up that coat!"
"I know you did not just say that to him. Say you're sorry. Right now."

Breathe. All that beauty. Glory in it.
Thank God for His creation. These. These ones.
Know you can't protect them. Breathe.
Breathe in. Let it out. You can't fix it. You can't.
But for right now--. For right now.
You can-breathe them in.  

Burning Pittsburgh's Libraries to the Ground

Since time immemorial, libraries have been among the first thing torched when a conquering enemy invaded. In 1358 B.C.E., the libraries of Thebes were destroyed. The Persians burned Egyptian libraries in 525. In 213, the new ruler of China ordered the destruction of all writings. The Patron Saint of Libraries himself, Jerome's library was burned in 416 in Bethlehem. Pope Gregory I burned all the books of ancient Rome in 590. Talmuds to the flames in Paris in 1244, followed by the death of every Jewish book there in 1309. Our own Library of Congress burned to the ground in 1814, fired by the British.

 In every century, a library is burned or murdered by destroyers of whole worlds and generations-- in the hope of replacing past narratives of strength and individual culture with the preferred one-- or who knows-- perhaps mostly out of simple malice. In our own time, The Sarajevo Library was burned by the Serbs in 1992. Almost all Iraqi libraries were destroyed in 2003 in the American invasion.

Sounds terrible and makes you shake your head-- oh, the terrible excesses of war. But if we "stay woke," as the activists in Ferguson implore us all to do as they continue their fight for justice, we see that the destruction of libraries is not a thing that belongs to the past. Instead, we must see-- we must be "woke" enough to see-- that libraries have been quietly being burned to the ground without much notice and, sadly, with most of our complicit inaction-- in our city, the city of Andrew Carnegie, the great builder of libraries himself.

If you live in East Hills in Pittsburgh, you don't have a public library you can walk to. If you live in Manchester, you don't have a public library you can walk to. If you live in some neighborhoods where it is dangerous to walk outside of your door, and if you are a child, you can't walk to a neighborhood public library-- even if it is a few blocks away--because you may be in danger of being hit by stray bullets. There are no book stores in those neighborhoods. Poverty is highly concentrated there, and in many other neighborhoods in our city that also don't have easy access to books. This has generally been true, and for a long time, and not just for Pittsburghers. Poor folks have less access to everything. However, public education, the great equalizer, used to provide libraries to students.

Think about that. Kids without resources had the opportunity to meet with a credentialed, highly skilled professional librarian once a week at school to hear the best literature told in the most engaging ways, and then to freely peruse bookshelves, inhaling the scent of thousands of books from which to choose. They had a warm personality to help guide them to a book that was "just right" for them- and to exchange books at least weekly, possibly more. They chose a book, took it home in their backpack, enjoyed it with their family for a week, then got a new one-- free. And safe. The great equalizer was the school library and the school librarian. 

In Pittsburgh, for a reason I do not claim to know, school libraries have been decimated as surely as the libraries in Thebes. If that sounds like hyperbole, ask yourself: if a library at school is unstaffed or locked to middle school students, does it exist for those students?

At one time, we had a Library Services Department that was an example for other cities, with high standards and highly regarded leaders. The Library Services Department advocated for librarians and libraries, set standards based on the best of professional practice and demanded librarians live up to them, among many other things. Long ago, the Library Services Department was eliminated and book budgets dried up. A group of the most highly credentialed professionals in a building, working to serve hundreds of disparate staff and students, will have many needs and concerns that only a highly skilled and credentialed member of their own profession is qualified to understand and address. Yet that entire department has burned-- scattered to the wind.

And as for the death of book budgets across the district-- You simply can not run a library without a book budget. It is not possible to meet the needs of your school with no new books. As curricula and the student body change, collections change-- since library collections MUST reflect the population they serve. What will you offer your struggling reader with a vision problem, who needs a beginning chapter book in large print? How will you romance your recalcitrant middle schooler, who "hates books" and only wants to read about WWE heroes, if you don't have anything she is interested in? Without an up-to-date collection, you prove to children that libraries and books are irrelevant to them.

But these things are not as bad as the death of librarians in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. Trying to create equity by giving each school a librarian one day a week is a failed model. Librarians succeed when they are deeply entrenched in the culture of their school. When a librarian knows every child's name, the projects teachers do each year, the curricula being taught, the foci of the school, she can build a collection to fit each of those things. Each one. Each child-each teacher-each project. I know. I did it. It was marvelous. One year, in which we received extra library funding to build the collection,  I was able to raise my school library circulation 600%.

But in Pittsburgh, that kind of success is simply not currently possible, because the position of School Librarian has been burned to the ground by the invading forces of Gates, Pearson, Broad et al. And we-- with a few notable exceptions-- have let them. Jessie Ramey, along with Kathleen Newman and Pamela Harbin has been a metaphorical Boudica and her daughters in a chariot for school libraries and public education. They aren't alone. Heroes like Wallace Sapp, Brenda Simpson, Kipp Dawson and so many others have raised their swords skyward and fought real battles for libraries in schools. As we put away our joy at having elected a new Governor for our state, one who promises to be a friend to public education, and get to the work of helping him define what that means, let us not forget the lessons of history: enemies burn libraries to the ground for a reason. And we who cherish and work to instill critical thinking, imagination, love and respect for "other," and basic humanity into our children and our students have reason to fight back.

Libraries Tell Our Story

Librarians, Libraries, Serendipity And Passion

Source: Book on Fire: The Destruction of Libraries throughout History, Lucien X. Polastron.

Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith-- Oh, Lord! What a book!

 “I read somewhere that human beings are genetically predisposed to record history. We believe it will prevent us from doing stupid things in the future. But even though we dutifully archived elaborate records of everything we’ve ever done, we also managed to keep on doing dumber and dumber sh*t. This is my history. There are things in here: babies with two heads, insects as big as refrigerators, God, the devil, limbless warriors, rocket ships, sex, diving bells, theft, wars, monsters, internal combustion engines, love, cigarettes, joy, bomb shelters, pizza and cruelty. Just like it’s always been.”

So opens possibly the craziest narrative you may have read to date, Andrew Smith’s “Grasshopper Jungle” (Dutton Books, $18.99, ages 16-18.) There truly is no better way to discuss this book than to get out of the character’s way and unleash his voice. Smith brings together the styles of Francesca Lia Block, Lewis Nordan and what can only be his own twisted soul in this story of science, evil geniuses, man-eating bugs and eternal libidinousness.

Austin Szerba is the tenth-grade historian of Ealing, Iowa. Austin records his life, the lives of his neighbors and town in tall stacks of journals. His best friend Robby Brees is a funny, handsome gay classmate. And that is part of the story that Austin fills his journal up with: if Austin loves Robby and is attracted to him, does that mean he is gay? Even though Shann, his girlfriend since seventh grade, drives him to extremes of lustful fantasy at every second?

Working in an antique shop called From Attic to Seller makes sense for a budding historian. One night, he and Robby decide to investigate the back room. It is not a good idea. A baby with two heads waves vaguely in a globe. Glow-in-the dark pulsating goo lights the dark. Most horrifically, in a large glass case, labeled “McKeon Industries 1969-Unstoppable Soldier-Strand 4-VG-12” float grasshoppers “as big as middle-school kids.” At the same time Robby and Austin stand slack-jawed and horrified in front of these things, a group of neighborhood bullies break in to steal things in the store. They smash one of the globes in the parking lot. And that is REALLY not a good idea.

Repeating phrases like “It was not a good idea,” “real dynamo,” “And that was our day. You know what I mean,” become a lexicon of double-entendre in this hilarious, lewd, beautifully written book. The narrative voice is so authentically a 16-year old boy’s that obsessions with sex, swearing, excrement and body parts in one’s nether regions feel natural. Like so many great books, it is studded with sentences that need to be said out loud over and over, if you can say them with a straight face. A dark, dark humor lights this book up like the gelatinous goo in a dark room. Consider this passage:

“Robby and I were the gods of concrete rivers, and history does prove to us that wherever boys ride bicycles, paved roadways ribbon along afterward like intestinal tapeworms. So the mall went up--built like a row of happy lower teeth--grinned for a while, and then about a year ago some of the shops there began shutting down, blackening out like cavities when people left our town for other, better places.”

Passages like this build a world we might recognize, or if not, that we understand. Smith writes with a poetry that celebrates and clarifies how a teenager might see a crumbling town filled with crumbling people.

But routine crumbling has not yet begun. When the smashed globe unleashes Unstoppable Soldiers—that is, bullet-proof six-foot tall grasshoppers, voraciously hungry and profoundly ready to reproduce—they begin noshing on townspeople. That’s when Robby, Shann and Austin find Eden, a generously appointed time capsule from the 1960’s. Created by the evil genius responsible for the mysteries of the back room of Attic to Cellar, it is meant to house New Humans after an apocalypse.

What an interesting situation for a teenage historian! What a complexity of past, present and future! Austin’s mind is a stew of Polish history, his family’s lineage, his dog Ingrid, his lust and love for both his best friend and his girlfriend, cigarettes, prehistoric paintings, Saint Kazimierz, and his mother’s tranquilizers. As chaos grips Ealing, Iowa, Robby, Shann and Austin must build their own history, their own definitions of themselves, and a future previously unimagined. Austin ends his narrative having learned a profound truth about the nature of historians and history itself.

For brave-hearted souls undisturbed by mature themes, this book is highly recommended.

 

 

 

To Approach a Child

Hee hee!! Absolute glee! Success!!

A shy little boy came in today, one whom I have never seen. His Mom told him to go find a book. Then she went to the adult side, leaving him standing there, swaying a little.

Rule 1--Do not approach. Watch but don't seem to approach.Big, overly helpful, smiling white lady in the face is not necessarily the help one might think it would be. It's overwhelming.

The little boy wandered around, emboldened by being alone. He walked over to the books and walked up and down a stack or two. Overwhelmed, he retreated to the Lego table. Not interesting. To the train table. Meh. He's standing in the middle of the room. Now's the time.

Rule 2-- When the kid is ready, approach slowly-- as if approaching a wild deer. Really.

I wandered over to him, not too close. From a distance, I said, quietly, "Hey, bud. Need some help finding something?" He shook his head no. Too much, too soon. Ok. Retreat a little. Stay near-ish. Look at something else. After a minute, the little boy said, "Do you have a book on dragons?" I told him we did, and started to look. Nothing! How did we have no books on dragons??

I told the kid we had chapter books, but really no picture books on dragons. He said, "No. I mean, about real ones." I said, "You mean, like lizards? There are no real dragons." (Hating myself now. Blighter of hopes and dreams!! Monster! Murderer of belief!!) He shook his head. I had struck out. Dang.

I went straight to my book jobber, convinced that the next kid to ask me for a book on dragons would find one in our collection. Found a good one. Checked the OPAC (online public access catalog) to make sure it was a good fit for us-- and found my library owned it. Whooo-hoo!!

Went to my own shelves. Found 6 books on dragons-- Dragonology, myths about dragons, a look at cultural understandings of dragons--bonanza! Have to get better at using our circulation system.

The little boy is on the floor looking at movies. I approach him slowly and say, "Hey. Guess what? I was wrong. We have books on dragons." I put them on the floor by him and leave.

Too much interaction will spook him. Back to my desk.

The kid picks up all the books, comes to the table nearest me and POURS over them. He's devouring them as if he's a dragon himself. Inside, I'm dancing the Chinese Lion Dance. It's a Mardi Gras over here. I'm snickering and jumping up and down-- while straight-facedly, quietly looking at my work calendar. HUZZAH!! Found a little boy a BOOK HE LOVES!!!!! Remember the Charo dance from Love Boat? Sure you do! Front- and back--and a belly and a belly and a belly and a belly!! (But it's all on the inside. Big crazed dancing white lady won't go over any better than big regular white lady.)

Mom comes over the check on him. He goes to Linden. He is studying Chinese. I tell Mom I bet he's heard of dragons from his Chinese teacher--it's almost Chinese New Year, after all.

Rule 3- wait. I'm waiting. If he shows any signs of wanting interaction, I'm on it. We'll build a paper dragon together. We'll talk about dragons stories. I'll ask him to tell me what he knows about dragons.

Kids can be like a bush deer-- shy, quiet and wanting to be alone. That's okay. Some kids are a one-woman band-- they need an audience, a person to talk to, laugh with, bug, destroy. That's me too lots of times. I like them all.

The little boy walked out with him Mom, book under one arm. I braved it. I yelled after him, "'Bye, sugar!" He turned around and looked at me for a minute. Then he raised his hand, and said, "Thank you."

Notes from the Hill

It turns out being a public librarian is pretty awesome. And I was right-- I don't have to be an outlaw. I'm pretty much an in-law now-- just part of a network of people doing what they love to do in service to other people.

The Hill is full of citizen champions, to use the term Vanessa German coined. There's the man who brings in the 5-year old to hang out with. They do puzzles, read books, make crafts, play games on the computer. On Friday, this gentleman brought in this little boy who he is mentoring. The little boy asked if I would bring out the keyboard donated by Dr. Jennifer Olbum. I did. He messed around on it with his adult friend, then asked me if I had any drums. He plays the drums. He wanted a beat. I showed him the metronome key on the keyboard. He turned it on, sat and listened to it for awhile. When I asked him what he was going to do, he said, "Shhh! I have to hear the beat!" I shushed. He listened. Then he suddenly put both hands on the keys, Phantom of the Opera style, threw back his tiny head, closed his eyes and sang, "JEEE----SUS!!!"

That kid is awesome. He's one of about twenty I see all the time. He makes me happy.

Then there's the little girl who comes in everyday after school. She is a vortex of papers, coats, gloves, backpack stuff, hot Cheetos and Cheeto-red fingers, which are everywhere. She is blunt, loud and real. The other day, the security guard, who loves kids, asked her how her school day had been. She regarded him, sitting at the table where eating is allowed, crunching chips. She said, "Bad." The security guard asked her, "Why? Do you pay attention?" Immediately she said, "YES!" A minute passed. Then she said, quieter, "...no." Haha!!

 She sheds her homework like a molting bird. I find it fifteen times everyday in different parts of the Children's Room. I hand it back to her and say, "Come on. Finish it." She asks for help, which I often give. I find it later under the Legos, or in the dollhouse, or under a stack of paintings she did, or among the trash.

Once she had such an attitude that I sent her home. I didn't see her for many days afterward. When she finally reappeared, she said, "I was so mad at you. My grandma whopped me. So did my mom." I told her I understood she had been mad, and that I'm glad she could tell me that. I told her I wasn't sorry for calling her Mom. I told her I knew she was capable of good library behavior. She looked at me, then asked if she could help clean up the Kuumba art center. Without morphing suddenly into an angel, this kid is now my self-imposed champion and helper. Sometimes, you get lucky. What you see is what you get with this little girl. I love her for that. She is special to my heart. She teaches me how to be a better woman every time I see her-- because she is unapologetically herself.

In a neighborhood where 49% of the population lives below the poverty line, at Christmas we were showered with candy, presents, cupcakes, cards and love. My sister works with impoverished families, and she says the poor are always the most generous. I don't know if that is true, but I'm seeing a culture here that I admire. Mothers and grandmothers hold kids accountable. People spend hours and hours looking for jobs-- hours that turn into days and weeks. They don't quit. Moms who bring their children to the library before working all night because they love and trust the library. Moms and grandmothers who do art alongside their children for the sheer fun of it, with their phones off and in their purses. Fathers and grandfathers and great-uncles who lovingly kiss and hug and hold their babies and read to them, sprawled out in an armchair.

Whatever the predominate culture thinks about the Hill, I am glad to see this side of it. It is a privilege to learn alongside these people.

 

No More Outlaw

The night I left the teaching profession, I lay in bed on my stomach, half asleep. It felt as if brown and gray butterflies were drawing themselves out of my back. Butterflies that carried on their wings all the things I had felt as a teacher: fear that being myself with kids was somehow wrong. Fear, knowing that at any minute as a building sub I could and would be called to cover a class with no time for preparation. Preparation is the only thing you have to arm yourself with as a teacher. Feeling less than. Shame at being paid less than my kids at their college jobs or babysitting gigs. Stress, so much stress, knowing I would be asked to teach with no working technology, not enough staff, no supplies and little effective supervision or support. They drew themselves out of me, like night moths, and flew slowly away, out the open window and into the summer air. And I breathed quieter and went to sleep.

I have left teaching, or more accurately, teaching left me. My graduate school has all but stopped offering School Library certification. There are few jobs as school librarian to be had anywhere. Pittsburgh's school libraries are staffed three times a month. Philadelphia will begin their 2013-2014 school year with no recess or lunchtime aides, no assistant principals, no school secretaries, no music or art teachers, no librarians, no school nurses and no money for books, paper or supplies.

The majority of Americans have shut their eyes to corporate forces privatizing public education. They either don't care to read what experts like Diane Ravitch and Jessie Ramey of Yinzercation are saying, or don't make it a priority. Instead, they subsist on the panem et circenses the corporate media spins. They go on vacation three times a year, send their kids to private schools, tut-tut over news stories, and think about their next shopping trip or what to wear to the next big gala. Or they are so frantic to make a living that they exist in a never-ending cycle of catching a bus, going to job one, going to job two, trying to parent, and then starting over the next day. I don't know what the folks in the middle are doing. Not enough-- when it comes to political action and American education.

It doesn't have to matter to me now as a teacher. I'm not one anymore. I'm a public librarian in an impoverished and ignored neighborhood in Pittsburgh-- the Hill District. Now I get to teach in a new way, without all the fear and stress and pain. Now I get to worry less about classroom management and getting and bringing my own supplies and technology, and stretch out and think about what works. I'm lucky. I found a home.

This home will be what my blog reflects from now on. Random Thoughts of An Outlaw Educator will take a different path. I'll be educating-- but outside of a classroom. I'll always advocate for kids and I'm sure I'll still be marching and writing letters to the editor and signing and circulating petitions. But the need for me to be an "Outlaw" is over. I can educate from within a system now. The Pittsburgh Carnegie Library system. And I can say goodbye to those dark butterflies that lived inside of me for so long. With relief and blessings. 

Pearls Before Swine

June 6, 2013

Dear Tribune Review,

Thank you for covering our story! We highly appreciate you shedding light on our positive activity. With your help, we've hopefully encouraged others. We thank you for taking time from your day to interview us. Our story being included in your successful newspaper will surely touch people's hearts. Most importantly, without your help, Marcus White Jr.'s mother would not have seen people of all ages, colors and neighborhoods in Pittsburgh who have her family in their hearts.

Thank you,

-Langley Justice League

This morning, an eighth grader wrote this thank you note at Langley in appreciation of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. The Tribune Review sent a reporter and a photographer out to our school to cover our Langley Justice League's Marcus White Jr. project. (See Pittsburgh Langley K-8 Justice League in this blog for more details.) She worked quietly, independently, and produced this jewel of a letter.

The letter exhibits the true good that public schools can do. Yes, we teach kids literacy and maths, social studies and science. But a public school funded by taxpayers has a higher, richer obligation than just these skills: we teach kids basics of citizenship in America. To take part in the democracy our founders envisioned, kids need to be able to tolerate difference. They need to be have empathy for others. They need to find themselves in an environment that acknowledges and treasures their individual generosity, kindness, compassion and multiple strengths. Some kids are great at standardized tests. Some kids are great at seeing injustice and responding to it. Which is valued more by our Governor, our Secretary of Education, our President? It ain't the answer it should be.

The beauty kids have inside. This is the sticky part, the part that can't easily be quantified, data-fied, measured, marked, evaluated and yes-- tested. This is the part that matters the most. And this is what teachers from Detroit to Philadelphia to Chicago to Seattle to Sacramento have been fighting for. The right to nurture the gifts their students have as people. With fully funded music, sports, art, library classes-- and flexibility in the core subject areas so "teachable moments" from the wider world are welcomed, not feared or avoided.

It took an outlaw to create the Langley Justice League. Here's a circuitous route to what I mean: I was let go from Community Day School a year ago. Since then, I've been subbing in Pittsburgh Public Schools. I've applied for many jobs in this District and outside of it, getting none of them. So I continue to sub. I gross $100 a day for this work, and it is hard. I have financial obligations I'm not meeting. I spend a lot of time doing manual labor in 90-degree heat and other things below my area of skill and expertise. I'm outside the system, looking in. That sucks. What doesn't suck is the freedom I have.

I don't have to teach a curriculum somebody from afar designed. I don't have to worry about pacing-- getting the whole curriculum done, which can disallow forays into topical subjects. I can swerve into current events-- the local murder of a toddler, for example-- without fearing my VAM score will drop, or my RISE evaluation will be poor. Being the lowest man on the totem pole has it's advantages. As long as I'm doing right by kids, I've been allowed to do what I want to do. But there is a price.

I know if I were to get one of the jobs I'd love to have-- the security of it, the ability to truly grow professionally, the deep relationship building with staff, families and kids, the chance to work at my level of expertise and skill, the chance to earn a salary that a good teacher with a Master's Degree can earn---I'd have to sacrifice. I'd have to sacrifice a lot.

Due to Governor Corbett's billion dollar cuts to our education budget, there are no jobs for school librarians in Pittsburgh. Due to people's apathy to the damage done by programs like EITC credits and other back-door vouchers and the $1 million a day over payments to on-line charters, our public schools are-- in Jessie Ramey of Yinzercation's words-- bleeding out.. I'd have to go back to school, get an additional certification, pass more expensive PRAXIS tests, gain certification in another area-- one that is less aligned with my interests, skills and gifts-- I'd have to sacrifice my Master's in Library Science. I'd have to become a different kind of teacher to get a job in this District. And that's supposing that even though we are on track to be BANKRUPT in 2 years, I'd get any job-- in any certification area. It seems like a bad bet.

And if I got a job, I'd be responsible for upholding the dictates of No Child Left Behind and the implementation of the Common Core. My wings would be clipped to some extent by these damaging educational policies.

So I'm subbing. And I'm being allowed to teach the way I want to. I show up with my own curricula (based on what the required curricula are) and my own supplies and technology, because no school I've been in had adequate amounts of either to meet my needs. I pay for the freedom I enjoy in classrooms throughout Pittsburgh with the fact that I don't have a permanent job. Most teachers can't do that-- they have a job, they have their curricula, they have their RISE and VAM to think about-- they have to keep their kids' health insurance, their wages coming in. Many don't have a husband (like I do) or a wife who makes a salary that keeps food on the table and health insurance that fills their kids' cavities, puts glasses on their kids' eyes, and pays for their kids' antibiotics and hospital stays if they quit. To teach how they want to. To sub, like I can. If they have a Principal who is focused on test scores to the exclusion of other things, they are trapped. It's not fair. It's terrible for kids and it's terrible for teachers. It's terrible for our city, our state, our country.

Teachers are ACHING to be the teachers they dreamed of being. They want to do special projects, take the time to teach about things in the news as they come up, sew quilts, plant gardens, trash a curriculum if it doesn't apply to the kids in front of them and experiment, be creative, spontaneous, trusted. Sometimes they can do that. Sometimes their Principals, their colleagues, their engaged and active parent base, their school board supports them in this. Other times, they can't. So-- either they take the outlaw route like me, subbing and hoping for a chance to get some good teaching in there--or they hope for an incoming Principal who will allow them to break rules. Principals would like to break more rules, too. They want good teaching to happen. So do folks at the Board of Education in Pittsburgh. They sincerely want Pittsburgh Public Schools to be all they can be, and often are, in spite of a despotic Governor, anorexic funding and vampiric educational policy.

But there are state dictates that must be fulfilled. They are tied to funding. And that's the part that sucks the most. The Catch-22. It would be nice to be a district wealthy enough to turn down the dictates that come with the funding associated with Common Core, Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind.

As I walked in to school this morning, a teacher I've seen but don't know well congratulated me on our Justice League making the TV news and the newspaper last night and today. Then she said, "...that tall boy...the one in the picture in the newspaper? I've gotten to know him a little. Do you think we can find a way to get him some private music lessons? He's so gifted. He has so much good inside him. I don't want him to go the wrong way. He's so special. Who can we call to get him some music instruction? He deserves it so much..." This is a white, middle aged woman, a teacher for many years. As teachers do, she is advocating for an African American boy not her own. Will this affect her VAM or her RISE score?

How about the Principal at a different school, the one who is buying a homeless child a suit for graduation because his parents are deceased? Will this affect his evaluation?

Of course it won't. The thought of trying to quantify these humane instincts is repugnant. These are the people and stories that make public education what it truly is. A place where democracy is lived. A place where teachers and administrators are first responders to poverty. THE place, for some, where children are noticed, and known, fed, clothed, loved. Can't quantify that, Mrs. Rhee, Mr. Duncan, Mr. Obama. Can't-- and shouldn't-- turn that into data, Mr. Gates.

You shouldn't have to be an outlaw to be a good teacher. You should be allowed to adapt curricula to the kids you have in front of you, not worry about what will happen if you don't implement outdated, boring or inappropriate stuff. You should have everything you need to teach well-- enough time, technology, money, supplies, air conditioning, clean schools. Kids should have music, art, library, sports, and flexible curricula offered by rested, trusted, treasured teachers not stressed and under the gun. Teachers shouldn't be wracking their brains for ways to get kids the enrichment opportunities they need and deserve.

 Principals should be trusted to allow teachers to invent their own flexible curricula. Boards of Education shouldn't have to choose between cutting off an arm or a leg to provide adequate education for their kids. And most importantly, the jewels of our country, our national treasure-- our children-- shouldn't be pearls before the swine of failed educational policies dictating so much of their lives.

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/4150028-74/langley-students-pittsburgh#axzz2VXVupZAm

http://yinzercation.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/bleeding-out/

Pittsburgh Langley K-8 Justice League

When kids decide to change the world, amazing things happen. Subbing at Pittsburgh Langley K-8, I began work with a novel study intervention group. These 8th graders had been working with Mrs. Ebony Lunsford-Evans, who, a week or two into my new assignment, sat at her desk, crying. She had just heard the terrible story about the murder of an 18-month old in East Hills. Marcus Lamont White, Jr. was at an afternoon cook-out with his two Aunties. Somebody started shooting at the group. One Aunt tried to shield the baby with her body. She was shot twice. The other Aunt was shot in her leg. Little Marcus was shot and horrifically, died.

Mrs. Evans was just destroyed. I had heard the news too. We decided to scrap our lesson plans for the day and just talk to the kids about what had happened.

That's when our kids decided they had a choice about how to respond. They decided to do a fund raiser to benefit the family. Working with the most amazing human being on the planet, Mrs. Nancy Burns of CitiParks, they met Tosha Brown, the graphic artist in the video, above. They decided to call themselves F3-- Fighting for Our Future-- or the Langley Justice League. They worked out an equation describing what they are trying to do and who they are trying to be.

Then Nancy brought Chef Odette, Chef Tiny and Chef D to Langley's culinary arts suite. The three experts taught the kids some basic culinary arts skills and helped them to bake many dozen cupcakes, brownies, etc. The sweets were for a bake sale-- manned by the kids. Today was the first day of the bake sale-- and we sold out. We had originally set our goal at $100. We made $285.

Here's the delightful part: lisping Kindergarteners, looking solemnly at the beautiful tall boys selling cupcakes, handing over their dollar bills, awed. Janitors who refused free cookies, demanding to pay for the cause. The teachers who bought their whole classes treats to support Marcus's family. The KDKA reporter who called, wanting to try to cover the story. The reporter from Urban Media Today who showed up, talked to the kids,  stayed for the whole sale, and promised to cover the story.

Media attention to these positive stories is so important. It honors the generous impulse of the child in a way that makes them feel powerful. It models and displays positivity and what Dr. King called Soul Force for all Pittsburghers and the world. And it puts public schools and the good they can do front and center.

Tomorrow our miracle worker, Nancy, is going to try to bring donated fancy cakes from bakeries around the 'burgh to raffle. Demands for t-shirts printed with our equation are loud. And our 8th graders are preparing to graduate-- and take their new model of their own power and potential out into the world. With love and compassion-- for Marcus, and for us, in service to our city.

http://animoto.com/play/YEt1nOrflewdgeCmCiO49w

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/4150028-74/langley-students-pittsburgh#axzz2VWUDmYQh

http://www.wtae.com/news/local/allegheny/Marcus-White-Jr-Memorial/-/10927008/20311094/-/8p1rn7/-/index.html

Remember this??

It has been an amazing year. From a miracle in Manchester to Haiti, what a long, strange trip it's been. And stay tuned..there are new developments developing...:)

Social media campaign brings books from around the world to...

Libraries and Miracles in Haiti

Check out these media files from my trip to Haiti!

Animoto video:
Libraries and Miracles in Haiti

Snapfish photostream:

Snapfish Haiti Photostream

Excelsoir-- the Most High

Yesterday was Sunday. Leon is the Bishop of the Church in Christ for Haiti. His grandparents established a church on a mountain many years ago near their home. It is up 205 stone steps, cut into an entirely vertical mountain. We prayed our way in the truck up the mountain path-- and it is a path, barely large enough for Leon's van. We didn't pray because we are religious people. We prayed because the city of Port-au-Prince lay panoramaed three hundred zillion miles below the sheer drop of the side of the road. PRAYED. And I almost had a stroke when the van BACKED UP and tried to turn around. It backed TOWARD Port-au-Prince. Our rear end teeetered toward the brink. I've said it before and I'll say it again: there are no atheists in a machine in Haiti. NONE. Miraculously, we didn't die. I think it was because Papa Leon was in the van. He's good luck. Our Father, Who Art in Haiti...Leon is His Name.. Either that or it's because I've apologized to the Voudoo Mama for any offense I may have caused. My camera roll is frozen on a picture and I'm worried it's because the Voudoo Mama didn't approve of me taking her picture. What to do? I mean this in all seriousness, without joking: maybe I'll have Leon bless my camera. Maybe that will seriously work to fix it.

But I digress. So! We made it out of the van alive and scrambled like the baby goats all around us up a gravely dirt hill. Then we saw them. All 205 steps. Lord. The dang sprightly yoga-doin, vegan-eatin, long-walk takin, size-6 wearin part of our group just charged right up. I took the steps one at a time, huffing and puffing, only pride keeping me moving. Don't be the last one. Don't be the last one. Yeah, but I was, but our beautiful Haitian translator stayed with me, smiling patiently. I took pictures as cover when I needed a breath. And I made it to the top.

 The world unfolded like a satin robe. The airy blue Carribbean. Tiny toy boxes, all in a jumble-- Port-au-Prince. The long green runway for the airport. The radio towers. And far away, the encircling mountains, wearing their cloud hats. I turned around and was greeted warmly by a tall man in a suit, smiling gently and beautifically. He welcomed me to his church and I went inside.

The church was destroyed by the earthquake. That means that all of the clean white cement walls, the towering wooden supports for the roof, each piece of tin for the roof, all the pipes and rock-- all of it-- was carried with love and devotion up that crazy fake road that was really a trail, up those 205 steps-- by a person. It was cool inside. Silk flowers cascaded from columns. Long wooden pews faced a round window in the front.

In this country with no running water available to most people, no washing machines, no electricity for most, and no no no no money, everybody was dressed in sparkling clothes. The whites were blinding. No skirt, dress, shirt or coat had the slightest wrinkle. Women were singing already. It is one thing to be wakend by angels singing in a neighboring church. It is another to be in it. I immediately started to cry.

It's the only response that makes sense. You are suddenly thrust into a cauldron of beauty, and you melt. The voices of these people. These women! They do more than their share of holding up the sky. They may be the ones who hold it up for us all. I think of the woman who will die of breast cancer because there is no treatment here. I think of the children whose teeth have rotted to the gum because their mothers give them soda rather than the filthy water available to them. I think of my students at home, beautiful, intelligent, dressed in filthy clothes for school in a country where everybody has running water and electricity. I think about Marie Estelle and her long dusty walk to work in the guest house....and how she arrives spotless, smiling, her face radiant. In the words of the civil rights mother who spoke them, "My feet are tired-- but my soul is rested." Marie Estelle takes pride in her work. Her shoes may be dusty, but her warm hands make the guest house a home. In Haiti, parents helplessly watch their children starve or die of preventable disease. They respond with song. Their throats pour liquid goodness, strength, love. In awe, I cry.

We are ushered to a long wooden pew. We are told it is not rude in this church to take pictures. The service, in kreyol and French, begins. The women stand up, turn around, and kneel, their elbows on the wooden pews, their bony knees in the cement floor dust. And suddenly I'm pissed.

Why should these women-- the trees that grow and spread and sustain the whole country-- grovel in the dust? It has to hurt. Their knees are bare. The floor is rough. They are down there a long time. What the hell??? Why should these magnificent human beings kneel? To anything or anyone? In the DUST? Hell NO! I want to rush around the room and lift them up. I want to knock the lovely preacher aside. I want to magically speak French and shout, "Get up! You kneel for nothing- not man, beast or god! Get the hell up! Don't you ever kneel again!"

What has praying got them? What does all this time singing God's praises really done for them? And then I remember to have a little humility. I can not know what their faith means to them. But it most likely is part of what sustains them, of what waters the trees. I can not decide for them that it is stupid. I am an outsider. So I sit there and cry instead, watching a tiny brown angel dressed in a diaphonous white dress trimmed all over in lace.

This baby is universally loved. About one year old, her head is encircled with lace. Her tiny ankles are covered in creamy white lace socks and her feet in miniature shoes. She toddles down her pew. Each woman, sitting, supports her, touches her. The baby stops, all tired out. She drops her head in the soft head of the woman at the end of the pew. The woman gently strokes her head. The baby, rested, toddles toward us. I hold my breath. Will she come to us? She stops, fingers in her mouth, and regards us. Here is all the treasure in the world. The most precious, the most beautiful thing. She assesses the all-white pew I sit in-- all of us on the trip. Unafraid, unintimidated, she swerves and goes to the pew in front of us and begins her walk down it. Again, parishoners know and love her. One very old woman in a green head scarf picks her up and snuggles her, whispering against her cheek.

I realize that Americans have every material thing and a rotting culture. Haitians have no material things and a culture that embraces what matters. I pray that this baby will make it long enough to be a spreading tree, full of wisdom herself.

Rabbi Sharyn Henry gives the sermon. Leon translates. It is the day before Yom haShoah-- Holocaust Remembrance Day. Sharyn speaks of Neg Maron-- the symbol of Haiti. Untoppled by the earthquake, he watched the presidential palace fall. He will never crumble. He is the spirit of Haiti. She speaks of Viktor Frankl, whose wife sewed his life's work into his coat before he was deported to Auschwitz. When Frankl arrived at Auschwitz, his coat-- carrying his life's work-- was taken from him. It was replaced by a coat that had belonged to murdered man. Inside was a small piece of paper-- the Shema-- the central prayer in Judaism. Shema Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad. Hear, O Israel! The Lord is One! Frankl realized his new life's work was to retain his humanity in the most inhumane place.

Sharyn spoke of those many Jews who sang Ani Ma'anim as they walked to the death chambers. It is a song expressing perfect faith in God. To me, this act was an act of rebellion. As if the Jews were saying, you may kill me in a million ways, but I will not be moved. I will remain myself. I am indestructable.

At least one Haitian wept. The rest listened, rapt. Sharyn said, we are alike, you Haitians and we Jews. We cleave to the same five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. These books and our faiths have helped us survive. You rebuilt your church and your lives against enormous odds. You have a mighty and glorious history. So do we.

Later, at the guest house, Jimmy-- Julienne's fiance-- welled up. He was trying to express what it meant to him to hear Sharyn's words. He said he cried in church as he listened. He said no one has ever compared his culture to another culture favorably. His forefathers did their part, he said, they gained their freedom from the French, the Spanish. But his people are still enslaved. They have given up hope. They don't know their past. They don't teach their children. They don't know about Toussaint.

Jimmy speaks Portugese, French, kreoyl and English. He was not born speaking these languages. He sacrified and walked and worked and finangled a way to learn. He wants to study politics, linguistics. He can not do that here. There are no civil services-- no trash collection, no mail service, no human infrastructure, let alone universite. He hopes to go to Canada to study, then come back here to serve his people.

Wadson, one of our translators, walked from Thomassin to Port-au-Prince as a child with his brothers to school every day. From Thomassin to Port-au-Prince. They started before dawn, had no lunch at school since none was available, and then walked home again to study. I think of our privileged, corpulent children stuffed with all manner of food they don't need who ignore books so they can use a lever to move light around a computer screen as if it is the only thing that matters.

Wadson's daughter, Shaamela, has a developmental delay. She is three but is the size of a tiny two year old. She doesn't speak. One eye doesn't track. Wadson lives in a one room house. They must gather wood to cook with and they cook outside. Every day. I don't know where they get water. Wadson is here before eight and stays after five. He never takes a break or stops working. He remains strong and smiling all day. He makes twenty US dollars a day translating for us. It may be a month or more before there is work again. What will Shaamela's future be?

After church, congregants embrace us. To a person, they all kiss us. Every one. I've never been kissed by more strangers and I've never liked it more. To be kissed by them is a blessing that will bring me joy for a long time.

 Leon's great aunt welcomes us her grandparent's house. She and many church women have created a gorgeous lunch for us. We are welcomed with more kisses and a lovely buffet. Roasted goat, tiny pink fishes, fried whole, grilled dried sardines, fried okra-- absolutely sublime!!-- picklies-- a kind of spicy coleslaw without mayonaise. Fried plantains, mountains of fresh pineapple and oh give thanks to all things holy-- chopped Haitian mango. I overindulge. The mango is silky, creamy soft, luscious. That holy juice runs down your chin. A lemon gateaux the size of a wagon wheel. We sit outside under the beautiful trees and eat, Haitain and American. In the face of the all the volcanic things that challenge us, we can celebrate some of the joys of being human. Our skin warms in the sun. We sit close together. The lovely food smells, tastes, looks delicious. We kiss goodbye.

I think: these people are the most deserving of good luck and good fate and good will in the whole wide world. Allelujah.


***

Here is Rabbi Sharyn Henry's sermon:

Bonjour, good morning. My friends, the members of the FLM team (Marian, Nancy, Cindy, Barbara, another Nancy, Susan, Sue, Sheila, Robynn, Rebecca) and I are so very happy to be with you this morning; it is has been our pleasure and privilege to have worked alongside you this week, and we all feel blessed by our time with you. Thank you for so warmly welcoming us. I am deeply honored to be sharing the altar this morning with Bishop Leon Pamphile, my friend and teacher.

Hinei mah tov umah na’im shevet achim gam yachad.

These words, set to a livelier tune, were the first words the students at Kolege devays Pamphile heard from us this week, and they apply to this moment as well. Taken from Psalm 113, the words mean Behold—or WOW—how good it is and how pleasant when brothers and sisters sit together.

My new friend Wadson suggested that I speak about faith this morning, the deep and unwavering notion that God is always with us. God is with us in good times and in hard times, at all moments, at every moment, and throughout our whole lives.

There are times when having faith in God is easy—when our children or our grandchildren are born, when we find love, when our days are fulfilling, when we make powerful connections to one another,

when the skies are blue and clear and when our hunger is satisfied and our dreams look like they might come true. On those days, or in those moments, it is easy to say, without thinking, as if by instinct, Hallelu-yah—praise God.

Yet, there are other occasions when life is hard; when people we love are gone, when our dreams don’t seem possible, when we are sick or worried, or impossibly tired from the weight of our burdens. It is in these times that we have to work harder to see God’s presence, to gain strength from God’s strength, to feel God’s gentle, healing compassion.

Your life here in Haiti is full: full of profound joy as well as immeasurable and vast challenge. You are strong and resilient, and you are proud to be Haitian.

My people, the Jews, have also endured unthinkable hardship throughout our long history. Our strength and resilience comes from the same fountain as yours: the long-standing, powerful, and meaningful traditions and the faith in God that we find in the Bible. In the book of Genesis, God calls Abraham, “Lech L’cha—go forth; go from your land, from the place of your birth, leave everything you know, and go where I will show you. Abraham and his wife Sarah were people of faith, and we, their children continue along the path they blazed.

Faith adds joy to our joy and lifts us up when we have fallen. And like the fragile flower that fights its way to emerge from amidst a pile of rubble—which we have all seen here in Haiti—faith can arise from darkness and despair and it can flourish.

In this spirit I would like to share some exquisite lessons; two lessons emerge from one of the bleakest and most horrific events in Jewish history, the Holocaust, and one has its source in the story of Haiti.

Tomorrow is a significant day for Jews, because it is [Yom HaShoah] Holocaust Remembrance Day. During World War II, half of the world’s Jews—nearly every Jew in Europe, six million people including one million children—were systematically degraded, humiliated, tortured and annihilated by German Nazis. Six million others, including those with physical and mental illness, and others who were considered sub-human, were slaughtered.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day we remember those who died and we say Never Again will we allow such hatred to come into the world.

On this day we can learn powerful lessons about faith in God, from the stories of people who lived through that time of unspeakable horror, as well as from those who perished. These stories inspire us today—those of us with daily, heavy burdens, those of us with scars from the earthquake only three years ago, those of us with doubt and questions.

There is a tale told of Dr. Victor Frankl, a psychiatrist from Vienna who was sent to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. He survived, but all of his family was killed. Before they were deported, Frankl’s wife sewed one of his manuscripts, an unpublished book, into the lining of his coat. This was his life’s work. When he arrived at Auschwitz, however, his coat, with the manuscript, were taken away from him.

Later, he was given an old raggedy coat that had belonged to a man murdered immediately upon arriving at the camp. When Frankl reached into the pocket of this coat he found a single page torn out of a prayer book. The old man had stashed a page of his precious prayer book into his pocket, the page containing a verse from Deuteronomy central to Jewish belief: Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad: Hear, O Israel, Adonai [the Lord] is God, Adonai [the Lord] is One. This verse proclaims our belief in the one God.

At that moment Frankl understood that to survive we need a reason to exist; we must have a purpose and a set of sustaining beliefs. Frankl’s book and his discoveries were not what would give his life real meaning. Rather, at that moment he understood what I now know Haitians understand: it is our inner lives—our faith in God and our connections to what is good and true and just and lasting —that give us hope and the strength to face the challenges of our lives.

Survivors of the Holocaust tell stories about Jews singing as they were being marched to their deaths. Often, the last words on the lips of these people were words of profound faith: “Ani maamin b'emunah shleymah b'viat ha-mashaich—I believe with complete and perfect faith in [God].” V'af al pi she-yit-mah-mayah, im kol zeh ani maamin—and even if [the situation looks hopeless right now], I still believe.”  Regardless of how terrifying or painful the moment, no matter how bad it looks right now, we will not lose faith. No person or storm or illness or challenge can take away our confidence that God is with us and there will be something better, some day.

My last story comes out of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that destroyed lives and property and touched literally everyone on this island.

Dr. Joia Mukherjee arrived in Port au Prince less than 48 hours after the earthquake.  Like many of you, Dr. Mukherjee has excruciating memories of what she saw in those first few hours, but the image seared most permanently into her soul is one of hope and faith.

After the first day, when she and the other doctors on her team treated 800 people, Joia asked an aide worker, “Kote Neg Mawon—Where is Neg Mawon?” He took her to the destroyed national palace, and there in front of it, still standing tall, was the statue of Neg Mawon. The symbol of Haiti, Neg Mawon represents nobility and freedom, and it cannot be toppled.

In 1804 the Haitian slaves defeated the army of Napoleon, making Haiti the first and only nation founded by a slave revolution. At the time of the revolution, 70 percent of the slaves had been born free men and women in Africa. This victory resulted in Haiti being feared—but also tormented in one way or another by the world’s powerful countries for the next 200 years. As a dramatic symbol of Haiti’s struggle for freedom, Neg Mawon stands, shackles broken, machete in hand, defiant and unafraid. He blows a conch shell to call others to freedom.

I wonder, what does it mean that Neg Mawon did not fall but the presidential palace was destroyed? Perhaps it is for the same reason that Frankl found the page from the siddur in his pocket after his manuscript was destroyed: the truth endures.  One thing is undeniable: Haiti is broken in some ways but invincible in many others. Haiti remains strong in the most important ways. You, the free and faithful people of this hard-won land, alongside people of every faith who care about you, all of us, together, and together with God, we are Haiti’s strength.

Let me end by listing for you some of the little, but enormously meaningful ways in which we have seen your faith: you name your children Emanu-el—God is with us, and Shammaela—God is there; you name stores and tap-taps El Shaddai and Yahweh and Elohim—all names for God; your teachers read the Bible in the five minutes between classes, you pray as you wait in line to see the doctor. You get up and you find work and you care for one another with kindness and generosity and devotion, and you praise God with every fiber and bone in your body. And every day, in good times and in bad, you pray and you sing:

Ak Confiance

            By faith we will walk

            By faith we will triumph

            By faith until the end

            God will give the victory.

Rabbi Sharyn H. Henry

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Eglise de Dieu en Christ

Boutillier 1