Give A Goat (open your pockets, y'all)

I bet you know that I am a teacher at Deer Creek High School in Edmond. You might even know that I am the DCHS Student Council sponsor. But you probably don’t know that DCHS Student Council has held an annual community-wide fundraiser for a charity for the past ten years. This week-long philanthropic week is called the Wonderful Week of Fundraising, or WWF.

The first WWF took place in 2001 in response to a Deer Creek High School teacher who died of cancer. The name WWF came from the World Wrestling Federation, which was the first year’s theme. Since 2001, DCHS has continued to raise money annually for worthy charities like Cavett Kids Foundation and Ally’s House. During WWF students have purchased shirts, attended assemblies, and participated in evening events like a dodge ball tournament and a black light dance. During WWF 2010, students raised $55,000 for the Spero Project, a year-old charity that aids refugees in Oklahoma City. This money jump-started their organization, allowing them to expand and continue their services. WWF 2011 is scheduled for March 2-9, 2011.

Student Council has selected the charity Give a Goat to be the WWF 2011 beneficiary. Give a Goat promotes and raises funds for livelihood projects in the Philippines, which help the poorest of the poor (mostly children) rise from poverty and malnutrition. To do this, Give a Goat supplies a poverty-stricken family in the Philippines with a free pregnant goat, which provides them with multiple streams of sustainable income. One goat gives everything from milk to fertilizer to marketable goods. In about three years one goat multiplies to over twenty, giving that family everything they need to thrive.


I invite you to give the gift of a free pregnant goat to a family in need. It only takes $50 to give a poor family a starter goat. $100 will provide a high-quality female goat. And $250 gives a high-grade breeding goat that will lift whole communities out of poverty. (Traditionally, a local charity has been selected as the WWF recipient. This is the first year we have chosen a global charity, but it is based out of Oklahoma City.)

Our goal this year for WWF 2011 is $75,000 which is a $20,000 jump from last year. To make this goal, we will need help from people like you. Any donation amount you make is very much appreciated. Thank you for your time, and I hope you will consider donating. All donations are tax-deductible, and since Give a Goat is a registered 401(3)c charity, you will receive a receipt.

**Please make checks payable to DCHS Student Council (Memo: WWF 2011) and mail them to Deer Creek High School, attn: Student Council, 6101 NW 206th, Edmond, OK 73012 by February 26, 2011. Make sure an address appears on the check, so a receipt can be mailed to you.**

Summer Reads

This summer is already coming to a close, and, as usual, I did not read as many books as I had wanted. Still, I know that many students (and some teachers!) go the whole summer without hardly reading anything at all. I feel like I could have stepped up my game somewhat--like reading the other two books in the Millennium trilogy--but my reading history for summer 2010 is better than nothing.

One of my favorite books from the summer was the last one I read. Diane Ravitch's book on the perils of mandated-testing and charter schools was interesting, insightful, and ultimately hopeful. I wish all teachers would read her book.

• Teague, Alexandra. Mortal Geography. © 2010. 87 pages. Poetry.
• Mali, Taylor. What Learning Leaves. © 2002. 74 pages. Poetry.
• Lowry, Lois. The Willoughbys. © 2008. 164 pages. Children’s Lit.
• Goldberg, Bonni. Room to Write. © 1996. 201 pages. Professional.
• Alexie, Sherman. Face. © 2009. 159 pages. Poetry.
• Alexie, Sherman. One Stick Song. © 2000. 91 pages. Poetry.
• Alexie, Sherman. First Indian on the Moon. © 1993.116 pages. Poetry.
• Dahl, Roald. The Twits. © 1980. 76 pages. Children’s Lit.
• Larsson, Stieg. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. © 2005 (2008, trans.). 465 pages. Mystery.
• Dunn, Stephen. Everything Else in the World. © 2006. 91 pages. Poetry
• Dunn, Stephen. Local Visitations. © 2003. 96 pages. Poetry.
• Hudgins, Andrew. American Rendering: New and Selected Poems. © 2010. 148 pages. Poetry.
• Alexie, Sherman. Old Shirts & New Skins. © 1993. 91 pages. Poetry & Short Fiction.
• Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. © 1986. 180 pages. Professional: Writing Advice.
• Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. © 2010. 242 pages. Professional.

Failure

Back in January I made a resolution to read only the books I already owned. I confess that I broke my resolution a few months back in April. It all started innocently enough. I was cruising the Web, searching for the most recent winners of the Pulitzer prize for poetry. Natasha Trethewey, the 2007 poetry winner, was in Oklahoma City for conference which I was going to attend. She was billed as a Pulitzer-prize winning poet, so I wanted to know how recently she had won the award. Then I discovered a new poet, W. S. Merwin, who I had never heard of before. He had won the 2009 Pulitzer prize for poetry, and, on impulse, I purchased his book on Amazon before I knew what I had done.

Since then, I have bought other books online, mainly books of poetry by Andrew Hudgins, Stephen Dunn, and Sherman Alexie. I told myself that getting back on the Amazon wagon was okay because these books weren't available at my local library. But I just did a check on the catalog, and some of the books that I bought were available. In my defense, I like rereading books of poetry, so maybe it's okay I broke my resolution. :)

Can I tell you a secret? Part of the fun of buying a book on Amazon is getting it in the mail. Real mail is ten times better than email. I love opening the door to my mailbox and discovering a white rectangular package. What's even better is if I have purchased more than one book, and I'm not sure what's inside. It's like Christmas, any time of the year. Ha. But I have really tried to limit how many books I have purchased so far this year.

For instance, the book I'm currently reading--The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--comes from the library of the school where I teach.

My purchased books keep piling up, and now that another school year is only four weeks away, I'm realizing that I have barely made a dent in my collection. I will keep reading, though. How could I not?

Six Word Memoirs

Red Shirts

It's late, I have other things to do for school, but I'm writing this down: my fifth hour has turned into a tiny little culture with inside jokes and quirks and together-ness, and I love it and I know I'm doing something right. We write and read and discuss what makes writing pieces work and why racism still exists and on and on, but we also had a Snuggie day today and tomorrow for some odd reason, we've decided we're all going to wear a red shirt. I can't even really explain this choice, but it makes me happy that fifth hour is so bonded and gung-ho and willing to do all sorts of silly, funny, random, strange things. They feel comfortable and at home and relaxed in my room, so I know that we are on the right path.

I read what I want

Mona cut my hair today. Not that we're on a first name basis--I never offered my name. I just read her Sport Clips name tag while we talked about books. Mona's friend gave her a book over a year ago for Christmas, and she still hasn't read it. In fact, it still has the bow on it.

I do the same thing. My 2008 Secret Santa gave me a mystery book called Down River. It sounded promising, but I have yet to read it. I always found other books I wanted to read first. Now that I'm in the midst of my reading resolution 2010 (see previous post), I may have time for Down River after all.

At work, I'm reading a book about differentiating instruction called Fair Isn't Always Equal. I plowed through a few chapters this evening, but it was hard, especially when a David Sedaris memoir was nearby. I knew I would enjoy the memoir, but I was just reading the educational book for information.

I think it's human nature to be selfish in reading choice. If someone forces me to read a book, I usually find another book to read instead. This somewhat applies to the classroom. If I gave total freedom to read whatever book, some students would eat it up. Others would be at a loss at what to read. Still others would not read at all. Thus, I assign a common novel for all my students. But why? What skills are they learning from it? Aren't a lot of them just Sparknoting it anyway? Couldn't I teach literary and reading skills with lots of different books?

Reading Resolution: 2010

For the past couple of years, I have spent countless dollars on books that I have yet to read. This year, 2010, I resolve that I will not buy any books for myself until I read the ones that I already have--a number at the moment that hovers somewhere around 30.

This does not mean I can't check out books from the local library. I most recently finished reading The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance (a terrific memoir), and today I checked out Nurtureshock, which I have had on reserve for about a month.

Some of the books on my shelf I have begun and have never finished, like Reif Larsen's The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet. Others, like Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge, I have never even started.

So here's to a year of reading books that I already own or can borrow from a library. Sorry, Barnes & Noble.