Happy 60th!

While working at the Children’s Defense Fund in Washington, DC, once a year the entire staff had a day of volunteering. We were divided into teams and sent to various projects around the District. One year, my team and I were sent to a local, public elementary school. I do not recall the name, yet, it was the stereotypical, inner-city, Washington, DC school found in a lower-economic, crime burdened neighborhood that persons with money avoid and send their kids to private schools.

The first thing I remember as we walked to the school were the bullet holes on one of the doors that lead into the building.

As we entered the school and headed to the classroom to talk and spend the day with a classroom of fourth graders, I noticed the only signs on the hall walls were ones made from construction paper by students for their school elections campaign work. My favorite, by far, was Alisha whose sign was, “VOTE FOR ALISHA FOR CLASS SECRETARY! I CAN WRITE IN CURSIVE!” I wanted to be her campaign manager.

As we talked and interacted with the students several told us that the previous week they could not go on the playground because “someone got shot and died there and the cops had to come look into it.”

Others shared, “Most weeks we probably get to go out on the playground a couple days a week cause of the crack vials and the needles. Teachers don’t want us out there.”

These fourth-graders shared this matter-of-factly as one would tell about last night’s little league game.

This is an elementary school in 21st Century America.

May 17, 2014 is the 60th Anniversary of the historic “Brown .vs. Board of Education” Supreme Court Ruling which said public schools must be integrated. Of course, with most Supreme Court decisions there’s the ruling and then the implementation of the ruling. In other words, we’re still working on this one.

A free, public education is foundational to democracy.

Every child should go to a school in a safe neighborhood, with clean playgrounds, the most modern technology and the very best teachers. Every child.

Good for the kid who goes to a school with posters promoting summer education trips to Florida; great for the kid who can take Japanese as a language option. Should we not, however, make sure every kid has small classroom size, current textbooks, and computers?

I spent five years working as a regional and statewide organizer for the “Good Schools PA Campaign” which anchored our work in the belief that every child should have access to quality, well-resourced education and that one’s zip code should not determine the quality of one’s education.

You and I both know that zip codes still are indicators of the quality of education a child will receive. Schools are becoming re-segregated around lines, yes, of race and also of income...sadly, those things seem easily interchangeable.

One of my most favorite quotes is by Simone Weil who said, “Love’s first step is attention.” If this post grabbed yours, then I’ll be curious to see where love leads you.

sj;

Women Strong

This year marks the 100th Anniversary of the official start of the Mother’s Day holiday. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared the second Sunday in May to be celebrated as Mother’s Day. Harry Hallmark smiled.

Before brunches, flowers and mandatory phone calls, the original intent of the holiday was a peace movement sustained by women who grieved their sons and husbands and brothers broken, maimed and killed in war. Ironic that it would be during the Wilson presidency the “war to end all wars” began and has never really concluded.

I am drawn to the image of women strong who wrote, rallied and raised awareness on the state-sanctioned carnage of war. The story reminds me of the women known as the “mothers of the missing” who gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, Argentina to stand in strong protest over their children who disappeared in what was known as Argentina’s “dirty war,” a time when the military juntas terrorized the country and over 30,000 sons and daughters went “missing.”

“I keep on looking for my children and everybody else’s children, because to me your daughter is my daughter, she’s a little bit mine. My children are a little bit yours,” said Carmen Robles de Zurita, a woman who is the Mother of two missing children.

There’s the rub. Whether one birthed and borne, or adopted and welcomed in, or have children in our lives that we care for, watch over and help raise…..we are all called to be mothers.

I come from a strong line of women who were resilient, connected to the land, had a deep-river faith, and for whom family was central. They provide me with a powerful lived image of strong women and tender mothers.

Although my Mom was a beauty whom when she put on her “Sunday best” matched shoes to clothes to jewelry and was elegant; when I think of her I see her in jeans and sweatshirts and sneakers. She had work to do and she did it very, very well. She succeeded in that most important labor of making a house a home, raising her children, doting on her grandchildren and every other child whom was blessed enough to be a part of her world, and being always there at the table where she would feed anyone who stopped by whenever and from wherever….nourishing in ways along with and a part from the food on the table.

She did not boast about her strength nor did she flex her power….Mom was always just there steady and strong and constant.

The strong women I know don’t complain, they are the originals of just getting it done.

The strong women I know set their resolve and rebound and remain.

The strong women I know love with a beautiful mix of tenderness and fierceness.

The strong women I know give voice not when it’s popular, yet, when it’s necessary.

The strong women I know are to be celebrated yes, on this day, yet, even more in how each of us follows their example by living our lives with strength and grace and continuing to mother and care for the children in our lives.

Happy Mother's Day;

sj;