Tiny changes, change everything

 When I was at my darkest moment as a child, homeless, cold, and hungry. I said Momma this world stinks...

She said it can change, at 11 years old an angry cynical me...said no one can change the world....

Momma said if we can't change the world, then maybe we can change a small piece of it. Then she brought us three donuts...in that moment my world changed, the anger broke, and the cynic in me died. 

What I did not know, was the donut money she used was her bus fare for work...she would walk 5 miles the next morning to work. 

Son, I wish I could change the world. Momma taught me, that changing the world starts with changing a tiny piece of it first. It begins with you and me. 

Tomorrow, my LLA 440 Pre-Service Teachers and are traveling to Chamberlain Elementary School in New Britain Connecticut to help celebrate Hispanic Heritage. These are the shirts our Center for Community Engagement and Social Research gave us, along with 1350 dollars for books for our teachers and Chamberlain's new library.

It is a win-win for all, my pre-service teachers get to combine Culturally Relevant Teaching, Literacy, and Service. Chamberlain children get to hear cool stories and Hispanic Heritage. They have mixed some about stories about horic heroes, and others about fun and love in Hispanic families. Everybody wins, and I get to change a tiny piece of the world in honor of my mother.

James Baldwin said about writing and literature:  “You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even but a millimeter the way people look at reality, then you can change it.”  This is why Literacy Professors write.

One Mother's sacrifice and one donut change my world, I pay it back every day 

One tiny change at a time changes everything,

Dr. Jesse P. Turner 

Central Literacy Center Director 

If you like to listen to the tune that inspired my blog this afternoon its Big Sean - "One Man Can Change The World" ft. Kanye West, John Legend

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBVotNefYME <

A New Moon Shot Equity in 10

 

In 2010, I walked 400 miles from Connecticut to DC, because high stakes testing abuse was killing the joy and creativity in our public schools. In 2015, I walked it because high states testing and inequity were turning our public schools for Black, Brown, Special Education, and Poor children into a School to Prison Pipeline. 

After my September radio show, my guests, and I shared a dream. In 2024, I propose state walks for equity, and equity report cards for legislators. This April 4, 2024, on the anniversary of Dr. King’s Assignation A small group of believers in change shall walk 12 miles from CCSU the first school of education in Connecticut to Hartford our state Capitol. What if small groups in all 50 states did the same. 

What if we issue equity report cards that failed this School to Prison Pipeline, gave states 10 years to make it right, came back each year with updated report cards. John F. Kennedy said we will put a man on the moon by the end of a decade, and we did. 

I am proposing a new moon shoot, a moral challenge to end 170-plus years of inequity and injustice in our schools. change it not a title wave, it is a cracking that brings the whole house down. Dare, we dream a new brave world...

We are the small cracks rejecting the silence and apathy of an immoral School-to-Prison Pipeline status quo,

Dr. Jesse P. Turner 

Uniting to Save Our Schools

Still True Badass Teacher

If you like to listen to the tune that inspired me this morning at sunrise, its the cover of Crosby, Stills and Nash's Teacher Your Children by Play for Change. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZIx55cFf-o

And if you are bored, and want to listen to the radio show that spark this moon shot..
https://www.facebook.com/wnhhradio/videos/6590115427739825 

How does America demonstrate our love of children color in our schools?

 

Maya Angelou said: “If you're for the right thing, you do it without thinking.” 

(I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)

No matter what you hear, Literacy is complicated, it includes essential skills, but so much more. 

At our Central Literacy Center, we meet children where they are, follow the data, and work hard to create a deep sense of caring. 

Every child receives one-to-one tutoring from a fully certified teacher here. Our children come from different school districts, some can have this level of support at their local public schools, but most attend schools that lack the funds to do this. Caring requires funding and resources. 

What is not complex is that Wealthy predominantly white schools have the necessary funding and renounces needed, and children attending schools in communities of color seldom have the funds or resources needed. 

We can't blame poor school districts or their teachers. We can blame America the richest nation in the world whose school funding formula supports inequality. Our children's learning conditions are their teacher's working conditions. We cannot blame children, families, or teachers who attend or work in underfunded and under-resourced schools. 

Nel Noddings: American feminist, educationalist, and philosopher best known for her work in the philosophy of education said: “My contention is, first, that we should want more from our educational efforts than adequate academic achievement and, second, that we will not achieve even that meager success unless our children believe that they themselves are cared for and learn to care for others. What is an America that spends roughly 23 billion dollars every year on predominately wealthy white schools than on poor schools in communities of color? It certainly isn’t that we care for all America's children! 

I know why caged birds sing,

Dr. Jesse P. Turner 

Central Literacy Center Director

If you like to listen to what inspired me it is TRUTH. link for a clip of me talking about inequity in our schools on Brainwaves Anthologies on YouTube I am tired of reading wars that imagine that inequality, systemic racism, and lack of funding does not matter.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLJzMZDTkrk&ab_channel=TheBrainwavesVideoAnthology <

I am the broken record of truth in our public schools