The More Academy I Get with Higher Education, the More I Cherish Every Worthwhile Second in a School Listening to Young People Learning to Read

It was the last of the 14-hour days, and I took a break while candidates met with administrators to run to a a school, so I could get my fix of young people, their readers, and the joy they have of sharing their skills with a perfect stranger. I was dropping off a box of POW! Power of Words, for the youngest girl writers who participated in the Cultivated Women's Collective...after school readers and writers who crafted amazing stories, poems, and narratives. The teacher cried. "I got emotional when CWP publish my poem, and I can only imagine the feelings the girls will have."

I am amazed by how proud young kids are when they are practicing their reading, demonstrating what their reading specialists have taught them, and acting as an audience to their efforts, struggles, and triumphs. It really is bliss, and I cannot recommend getting into schools to be literacy guides to the adults of tomorrow.

"Hey, Mr. Listen to this sentence. I'm going to kill my pronunciation."

And they do. 

The smell of the death colony of my mice suddenly gets more tolerable. Candles. Incense. They work. But so does all I cherish from having time with kids. Public schools at their best, who put forth the greatest efforts to be literate, all provided by strong teachers who've made it a career to invest in their success. 

This is what it is all about.