So sorry but I forgot to write that today was a travel day and I would post later on and well, later on turned out even later on as my fellow passengers and I got caught up in the Twilight Zone otherwise known as air travel today.
So we were hurried on to the plane, pulled away five minutes early and then......sat and sat and sat and sat. Then we took a tour of the airport, creeping into corners never seen before by human eyes and just before we would have timed out on the three hour rule and would have had to return to the gate, we finally were given the ok. At that point there were homicidal thoughts running thru my mind but no target for them. Frustrating!!
But then again, I sat there so frustrated and could not even read my book because I had the fat lady from the circus to my right who loved my shoulder and kept leaning on it as she slept and I tried graciously to get her off but had to do a tad of a push - several times!!! She also had some disease and was coughing all over the place, spraying away and so I am counting the days... And in the meanwhile, whenever she was up she was eating weird stuff, all sorts of jerky stuff and other gooey items. Yuk!!
To top it all off there were three screaming kids on the plane two and three rows ahead of me and they did not shut up for one second, not thru the delays, not thru the flight and not as we landed. One wanted a baba - for five hours! Why the hell did the mother not give it to him? And the third one was a baby so, perhaps an excuse is allowed but all together - grrrrrr!!!!!
But still and all, the trip ended on a high with the graduation of two granddaughters, one in Pittsburgh and one in NY. Gerry went to one and I to the other. Both girls looked beautiful of course - and made us proud and we sent pictures to each other as the graduations went on. Ahh, technology.
But there was one thing above all that truly impressed me and that was the spirit of one's school, a school which specializes in teaching bright dyslexics and no, the only problem is not reading b as p or saw as was. It is far more complex.
In any case, over 800 kids attend this school with a wait list of hundreds and there is now a Manhattan branch. What is most important is the spirit of these kids, the closeness between and amongst them, the dedication of the teachers and the appreciation of the parents for the faculty - and the value that the students place on their teachers and the school. They are taught to advocate for themselves and to see themselves as capable and bright, able to achieve what they were told was impossible for they were "lazy" or "dumb" or "stupid" and the list goes on. These eighth graders were accepted into the finest national and international schools and a former graduate spoke at the ceremony and had us all laughing as he states how he still uses the writing system and how he is now paid to read and write, he who could not read for so long. He was accepted into and attended the NYU Tisch School, a program where only 5 out of 5,000 applicants are chosen.
But better yet and yes, it was beautiful, was the interactions amongst all the kids, taking pictures with their bffs, hugging each other and yes, I know this goes on at all graduations ; it is just that here there was a totally free and non thinking intermingling and hugging and crying amongst all - black, white, brown, Jew, Catholic, Protestant, Arab and Moslem. These kids cried together when they lost a classmate to a fire, along with her two sisters and cried again even more confusedly when their beloved classmate and her sister were shot by their father. Unthinkable! Yet so. And they learned what was important - to see each other as people, as friends and human and fellow students and not as what one distinction or difference would make of them. Money did not make a difference either except for an instance or two when Jamie had to be explained to as to why she could not have a horse or two in her backyard as did some of her friends! They saw no difference at all other than height or character meshing, and it was beautiful. So here, my friends is the America we love and need to have.
Here is the America we ask G-d to bless and here is the America that is supposed to be. It is beautiful, so beautiful and I leave you with a quote by which they live, from Steve Prefontaine, an Olympic runner medalist who said, "If one does not give it his best, then he is throwing away a gift." I may not have quoted it exactly, but the point is clear. These kids know what it is to work hard, to struggle, to learn to speak up for themselves, to dream the big and seemingly impossible dream - and then attain it.
Kudos to the Windward School and would that ALL our schools could incorporate their lessons, attitudes and methods. G-d bless.
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