Taking a Stand For Poor Kids -- Geoffry Canada

As some of you know, I work in a high school. More specifically, I work with special education students in traditional classrooms providing extra support for them. Some need more help (focusing mostly) than others - but what I've found to be needed across the board for these students is a belief in themselves. Granted, all high school students need this, but especially those who have fallen behind the rest for one reason or another.

I know what it's like to feel like the stupidest kid in class, moving my finger quickly across pages during silent reading so that no one would see how slowly I really read. Of course, pretending to understand never helped me gain the skills to actually understand; pretending like I could read never helped me learn to read any faster.

One reason that I particularly enjoy working with these students is because I can approach them from a place of relatedness. I see their struggles and know them intimately - and so, I want to free them from the shame that comes with struggling in school - and perhaps give them hope that it does get better. This guy, Geoffrey Canada, has been working to give all under-privileged kids in Harlem an equal opportunity for education, tackling problems by intervening as early as pregnancy, and carrying them straight into college. This guy is on it - so much to learn from him...

Geoffrey Canada: Taking A Stand For Poor Kids

By the way, this is one of those programs that leaves you looking like an idiot because you're sitting in your driveway for 20 minutes after you get home so that you can finish it. Yeah. It's that good.

Free the Creativity!

"People trying to be original always arrive at the same boring old answers. Ask people to give you and original idea and see the chaos it throws them into. If they said the first thing that came into their head, there'd be no problem.

An artist who is inspired is being obvious. He's not making any decisions, he's not weighing up one idea against another... How else could Dostoyevsky have dictated one novel in the morning and one in the afternoon for three weeks in order to fulfill his contracts?"

Keith Johnstone, Impro: Improvisation and the Theater