The Miracle That Changed My Life (and led to education...)

In 2002, I experienced a miracle.

It took place in an unlikely spot:  a doctor’s office.  While lying on a hard table, a physician rubbing a sticky paste on my belly, I heard the clomping sound of a heartbeat and saw something moving on a monitor. The doctor smiled and quietly said, “You’ve waited for this your whole life, haven’t you?”  Yes, I guess I had. I saw my child for the first time that day. Just shy of my 44^th birthday, my son was born.

That moment changed my life in countless ways; in fact, it has defined it. Besides all the other things I had been – a daughter, a wife, a marketer, a Managing Director, a writer – I became a mother, a parent, a role model for my son. What I didn’t realize that day was that I became a “teacher.”  And what has come to be true is that his education – and that of those around him – has became my overriding priority.

Being active in his education is what has propelled me to pursue the field of education and has afforded me a profound respect and gratitude for the role teachers play. In particular, I’ve come to realize how critical the teachings we learn in our formative years are and just how true Robert Fulghum was in his book “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”  I have been continuously encouraged by the enthusiastic support and thanks from the children, when I read them a book or assist in a project or simply help solve a math problem. Working with children has made me a better listener, more patient and more flexible. (Although my son complains that I am not such a great listener, as I don't always share his enthusiasm for aliens with guns or long-winded stories about inter-planetary wars!)
Since my son’s days in pre-K, I have spent hours assisting in the classroom, have been an active PTA member and Room Parent. I was voted onto the South Pasadena Educational Foundation in 2010, which has raised over $500,000 yearly to augment what the State has lacked in funding for our district. When I was asked to be an Art Docent for a school-wide program, I was thrilled to be able to develop a plan, teach and watch incredible talent unfold when our craft and video-based “Imagine Project” came to life.  When I brought my fictional series “The Jelly Bean Chronicles” to my child’s class, his teacher and I were so impressed by their enthusiasm and understanding of the concepts that she and I together developed a plan to use it as a pedagogical and fundraising tool.  

So, I have decided that my future is one in which education takes a front and center seat.

My goal is to help lead California to rise from the nation’s bottom in terms of student achievement, to be the beacon of educational success it once was.  I want to be at the “table” when decisions about what to cut and what to save are made. I want to help ensure that current events, global context and the arts are not lost on our children. I want to see a public school curriculum that includes second language study in the primary grades.  That is the kind of teacher and reformer I hope to be:  a globally minded leader, who can instill a can-do attitude and love of learning in her students and be a voice of reform and reason on a larger scale.

Uncharted Territory

Time and the economy have pushed us into uncharted territory. According to this past Sunday's edition of 60 Minutes, over 16 million children are living in poverty in the United States, a quantity not seen since the very early 1960s. Families are living in cars, trailers, makeshift shelters in unprecedented numbers. There have never been this many unemployed for this long in our history. Families are forced to face their worst nightmares on a daily basis. I know-- I am one of the affected.

While I speak to many friends whose lives and lifestyles have barely been touched by the economy of the past couple of years, there are countless others who have felt the hardships. Children being yanked from schools because their parents can no longer afford their homes. Depression setting in. Bankruptcies, foreclosures, unplanned family moves, lay-offs, endless unemployment. Nuclear families are growing to include two and three generations under one roof. Urban Nomads are becoming much more commonplace, as people fight for survival and move to more fertile ground. Fertile for employment and a place for their kids to learn. Safe, secure. The US was once known as the country of opportunity. It is now a place for simple survival.

Have no doubt: we are swimming in uncharted territory and if we do not make course corrections very soon, we will drown. If our children continue to study without a global perspective, we will continue to spiral downward with no cultural compass. If we do not begin to re-build the infrastructure of our cities, and by doing so, employ masses of those currently unemployed, we will crumble. If we do not begin to harness the energy of our people, cultivate our resources, there will be no harvests to reap.

BUT there is good news: we have not yet drowned. We ARE able to swim. We ARE capable. There is still time to write the course and right the chart. Look around you. Stand up for what you believe. Do not take no for an answer. This is the moment when everyone needs to be counted.

Spend time in your children's schools. Write letters to your local politicians and make your voice be known. Spend time in a Food Bank. Give back and be a helping hand because only together can we re-build. Please.

A Conspicuous Life Means Being Active, Present and Accountable

I was raised with high expectations.

When my father recently handed me a tattered and crumbling cardboard binder, I wasn't sure what to do with it. Nearly disintegrating in my hands, I recognized the handwriting and saw it contained a young man’s research—his research. There were articles torn from newspapers and completed school assignments reflecting my father’s perception of current events in the 1930s. Among the top twenty people he noted in the news were Ribbentrop, the Duke of Windsor and Pearl S. Buck. In short, the students at the East New York Junior High School were learning about literature, China, trade pacts being signed and Hitler on the rise.  They were taught where Tanganyika was and about Mussolini in Italy. He took both Spanish and French.  Latin and Greek classes were also part of the curriculum.

In one paper, something he highlighted resonated with me and stood out above all the other work. It was something that I know he taught me and my two sisters. The note said,  “Advancement in life means becoming conspicuous in life.” I believe I am my father’s daughter in many respects, but perhaps none more so than that singular belief:  being “conspicuous in life” - present, active and accountable. What was most remarkable to me, the mother of a third grader in California's public school system, was how impressive the curriculum was in the 1930s and how globally-minded students were back then and how sad it makes me that we no longer have that kind of quality in our classrooms.

I thought about was how far our educational system is from the days when Greek and Latin were accessible to all students, when expectations were high and teachers were revered. 

Recently, I attended a parent leadership training conference led by “Educate Our State,” a grassroots volunteer organization uniting the voice of Californians to demand high quality K-12 public education through a re-prioritization of funding at the State and local levels. The keynote speaker, Delaine Eastin, the former State Superintendent of Public Instruction said something so simple, yet so memorable: “Our children are a message we send to a future we will never see.”

This will be my guiding light moving forward, being "conspicuous." I am asking any of those reading this to join me to ensure and safeguard that future…to guarantee that it is not one in which our children do not know the Periodic Table because they’ve only had science in 2^nd and 4^th grades or one in which a child doesn’t know how to hold a paintbrush because she’s never been in an art class or a young boy hasn’t a clue how to catch a baseball because Physical Education was not in the budget.

If you are in California, you will have a chance to sign a petition in January which will seek to put a Constitutional amendment on our 2012 ballot to re-prioritze funding in our state. If you are not in California, you can still support us! Stay tuned for how!