A word about public schools

[kellyrfineman]

Longtime blog readers know that I've been posting (roughly) monthly over at Guys Lit Wire since its inception. Mostly I try to blog about poetry, because hey - that's my bailiwick. And teenaged boys need poetry too

Comments

[zibeth]

<3 Kelly. We do live in an amazing country as far as education is concerned, and it makes me so sad that there are these pockets that don't have all the books they need. I'll see what we can do on a local level. We have many similar situations here.

[zibeth]

btw, our town doesn't have a library. I'm planning on talking to the mayor to see what can be done about that.

[kellyrfineman]

Good luck with the mayor!

In the meantime, are you aware of the little library movement? You can get instructions to build a box here.

[zibeth]

oh, WOW. I had never heard of that!!! This will be going in as a proposal to the town office. Setting up even 3 boxes along our tiny main street would be so awesome. We do have a book mobile that comes out from the county library, but our whole county only has 2 libraries. It's not a small county, either, though very rural. Something stationary, always there, might be an encouragement to people here in town.

[dampscribbler]

Thank you for doing this, and thank you for linking to Powell's! I'll be making a donation, too.

[kellyrfineman]

Yay! And thank you!

[dampscribbler]

Oh, I forgot to come back after I ordered! I bought 3 books and 10 Powell's bags -- I figure the librarian can use them as prizes or something, and I couldn't help sharing a little Powell's pride. :)

[kellyrfineman]

What a great idea!

[kellyrfineman]

Yeah - Boston played into it, too, since I was feeling so sad about it, and in particular about that poor family whose son was killed. The dad was running and is fine, but his son is dead, his daughter lost a leg, and his wife - a school librarian! - had a serious head injury that required brain surgery. Just made me want to do something for kids and libraries and librarians all the more.

[fuzzyfostermom]

You are so right about the food issue. I've been working with homeless shelters for nearly 13 years now & nearly everywhere across the country, even in quite rural areas like mine, there are kids going hungry. Even the ones who get food at school, that might be their only real meal of the day. So another great thing to support, in terms of improving education, is programs that feed kids in school, and those great programs that are starting up in so many places where they give children a backpack full of food before they go home Friday afternoon... so they can eat over the weekend

[kellyrfineman]

The hunger issue just kills me - it exists here, too, in a fairly well-off school district in our suburb, which has a reputation for being middle to upper-middle class in composition. But folks forget there are some sections of low-income housing, and that no matter where you are, there are folks struggling to get along.

Also, passion is positive. It shows you're not willing to accept the status quo.

[slayground]

You are awesome.

[kellyrfineman]

So are you. But thanks, LW!

[slayground]

:)