From 1964 to 1971, my mom taught elementary school in inner city Philadelphia in a school so rough that teachers feared for their personal safety and substitutes often only made it to 10AM before quitting. Amidst that environment, my mom, fresh out of college and determined to educate and inspire, ignored the advice given by her new colleagues and forged a path of creative education that lasted for six truly innovative years.
She started a program of school assemblies for students though she had been told that students not only wouldn’t be interested, but for safety’s sake shouldn’t be in the same room together at the same time. She decided that students just needed a chance and for someone to believe in them. She decided to do assemblies and would get the student body together and read them poetry and Grimm’s Fairy Tales every week. Many had never had anyone read to them before. The students loved it.
When students did well in their studies, she would celebrate with them by throwing disco dance parties where she allowed the kids to dance on their desks. She took her classes on field trips, unheard of in the school, and the students would dress up as best they could, many never having been out of their neighborhoods before.
When I began speaking to students across the United States about Tthe Possibility of Kindness (a concept I talk about in my book), I knew the appeal would be nationwide. But this week, it was a tremendous honor to return to a neighborhood very close to where my mom taught in Philadelphia in the 1960s and work with and speak to an incredible group of two hundred 6th through 8th graders at William H. Hunter Elementary School.
Capturing the attention of young people is about speaking to them about ideas that matter, and doing it with sincerity and a determination to share and connect. I spent the entire day at the school, going into classes, connecting with students one-on-one at times, speaking about kindness and asking them what their dreams were and how they could take action on those dreams and build a better now to better influence the future they wanted someday.
Two nights ago, I sat with my mom and Stephanie in Pennsylvania and we asked her about her time as a teacher. Her stories were astounding and reflected being innovative, risk-taking, and purely renegade. She was a revolutionary thinker, and inspirer of hundreds of students over the years she was teaching. We sat in awe as she told stories of all the things she did for her students even in the midst of what conventional wisdom or better judgment might have advised otherwise.
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