The National Writing Project is one of many hundreds of national education initiatives that exist in this country.

Perhaps some are unnecessary, perhaps some are very wasteful, perhaps some are ineffective, perhaps some fail to create lasting change, perhaps some are poorly designed, perhaps some are simply heartless. NWP belongs to none of these categories. NWP changes lives, primarily the lives of students, and it does it by changing the lives of the teachers who teach them.

I know because it changed my life. It changed my life as a writer and a teacher and as an educator who learned that the richest improvement in our craft, our calling, comes from the shared wisdom and experiences of our colleagues.  I soon discovered that by accessing the best practices of a wide and accomplished network of passionate colleagues, my teaching improved across the board, not just my teaching of writing, though that, of course, was the entry point of the most profound change.

Education suffers no lack of professional development ideas, models, systems, products. But veteran teachers all know that much of this professional development is simply useless, mechanical, derivative, and short-term. It is rare to find a professional development system that continues to grow stronger and stronger every year, one that continues to act as a catalyst to our teaching long after our initial participation. NWP thrives on the power of connection and effective design.

At its heart NWP is a program designed to unlock our most personal voices -- and by extension the voices of our students and even, in some cases, the voices of entire communities. As such, it is a program of true empowerment for all of us. As a Native American educator, I am truly grateful to be for the National Writing Project.  

For Estelle

Dear Mom –

I need to post more often, as Tina has, and I guess Mother’s Day is the best time to follow through anyway, so here’s one for Mother’s Day.

I can’t say that I know all you’ve had to go through this past year, especially your recent health problems, but I’ve got some idea. As difficult as that was, it’s even more impressive to me that you and Ralph also still manage to volunteer a bit for the local community. You don’t need to, though. You’ve earned the right to rest from now on and no one will dispute that.

So, I’ll just say a few words or two about the things I learned from you and why you have probably been the greatest influence in my life. That’s not really any exaggeration either.

1)      You and Ralph both taught me not to be afraid of hard work. Sometimes I smile to think that there was probably a time that I was considered a sort of “slacker” in my day. Part of me believes that’s a bit of a bum rap. The other part of me knows it doesn’t matter, because for years and years now I’ve had a reputation in many circles as someone who works hard and doesn’t complain. I actually like to work, especially for causes I believe in. And I know I’m very lucky to have as a companion Tina, who’s just like that too. But the fact is, I learned it from you and Ralph.

2)       I learned from you the importance of social justice. That fundamental principle has been a significant force in shaping so many choices I have made, I can’t even begin to count them, but I know, without question, that watching you as I grew up in Miller County, especially the way you dealt with racism and the prejudice of class, shaped my own deep convictions early on. You always knew about how some people are quick to take advantage of those who were weaker or at a disadvantage, and you always stood up against that basic unfairness, no matter what that the cost. I try to be that way too, because of you.

3)      I learned a thing or two from you, and Ralph too, about why a spiritual life matters. But it’s true too that I had to find my own path to it. The miracle is that I found my way eventually, and I found Tina too, who reinforces all that matters to me and the way it matters, and I know, as much from you as anyone, that the way that Tina and I pray at the sunrise and participate in ceremonies every summer, and all the rest we do in faith, matters to Tasha and Desi and Troy, and Daniel even, and our grandsons too, whether they share that exact same faith or not.

4)      Which brings me to another important lesson you have always taught – to love your family with all your heart, even when they’re driving you a little crazy, or making you mad as hell. I never dreamed I’d have the family I do today. I’ll never know how I got so lucky. We do love each other, just as you loved me and the rest of us growing up, hard as it has been at times. Tina’s mom is like that too. No matter what, we’re family. We count ourselves lucky to be the family that we are.

Anyway, those are some of the things I want to thank you for. There are many other blessings I got from you, but these are some of those that I’m almost always aware of.

I hope this day brings you a lot of happiness. You deserve it more than anyone I know.

I love you.

Michael

10 things about Estelle….. (from an old facebook trend a year or two ago…_

1.      Estelle likes to talk, to tell stories. She’s a natural storyteller, who kept us all entertained at family meals throughout our childhood. At lunch or dinner with all us kids in at the table, she would relate events of the day involving the people who worked at Jo-Su-Li and her gifts of drama and especially characterization were not small.

2.      She has a temper that is quick to flash and quick to cool.

3.      She is probably the best cook I’ve ever known. I could go on and on about the great meals she made for our large family – from pinto beans and cabbage to fried chicken and baked squash to pecan pies and cinnamon rolls, but it would fill pages. Bottom line, she was a genius in the kitchen.

4.      Estelle and her sister Helen and their mom Anna always shared the most amazing bond despite the fact they lived most of their lives a thousand miles apart.

5.      She has never cared much for TV or movies or many other “entertainments.” She’s found her joy in real live people and the fascination with daily life.

6.      She traveled around the world and was deeply grateful to come back home.

7.      When my youngest brother William was a baby, she loved to sing to him the song “Can you bake a cherry pie, Billy Boy? Billy Boy?”

8.      At one time she could shoot a gun, at least a rifle. No doubt Ralph had something to do with that. But I don’t know if she’s touched a gun in 40 years.

9.      She won a lot of academic medals in high school that she kept hidden in a box when we kids were small. I wonder if she still has them. She was incredibly smart even then. I’d say she’s still one of the smartest and wisest women in my life.

10.  She knew a lot of old sayings that she told us kids growing up. My favorite one (I still share it with my students almost every year) is this: “Experience is what you get when you don’t get nothing else.” I’ve kept that one close to heart for a long, long time. 

Having spent a day or two at home snowbound, I've been reading Malcolm Gladwell's book What the Dog Saw. I love Gladwell's writing -- all of his books have so many insights into thinking outside the box of conventional wisdom.

He has an excellent piece on the slippery nature of plagiarism titled "Something Borrowed" that raises powerful questions for writers of all kinds.

He draws a brilliant connection between the difficulty of predicting success in the NFL for the highly-ranked college quarterback and the value of great teachers in an article I first found on the web and passed on to half my friends.

He also has a chapter titled "Million Dollar Murray," which looks closely at the devastating problem  of homelessness in urban areas like Denver and Reno. One of his conclusions that got me thinking about its application to education is that most of the cost involved in dealing with homelessness involves those who are chronic inebriates and mentally ill. His discussion examines what statisticians call a "power law" distribution --- not the normal bell curve but one in which all the activity is not in the middle but at one extreme. He compares the homeless problem to other situations too: the problem of excessive force in police depts., the problem of smog checks as a form of pollution control. His notion is essentially that we try to control these problems by regulating the heck out of the vast middle, where the problems barely exist, when we'd be far more effective if we simply focused most of our attention to tackling the hardest to solve cases, which account for the bulk of the expense anyway.

This certainly made me think about the current debate in my region concerning our dismal high school graduation rates. My gut tells me that the power law distribution is operating full force here --- that we have a relatively small number of students with major life issues pretty much beyond the reach of our generalized conventional approaches to keeping them in school. We may never reach these young people unless we devote significant resources and personnel to tackling their intense real-life struggles. As Gladwell notes, we are already spending far more under our current systems of problem-solving with little effect.