Month: June 2015

Lovely Last Day in Cambridge

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I had left an extra day after the movers just in case any problems came up – but they didn’t! So I spent a really nice day wandering around Harvard and Cambridge, kind of saying good-bye for now. The weather was perfect – about 70 degrees F (21 for my Celsius friends) and not much humidity (so no frizzy, cotton-ball hair!). Couldn’t have been better! A few highlights:

Harvard Graduate School of Education haunts…

Where I lived 30 years ago….

Where I worked 30 years ago (note the job progression!)…

Just some classic Harvard spots worth remembering….

Move-out day…

Since it’s the last weekend in June, I passed LOTS of fellow students moving out all along the way, and (while empathizing), was really happy that my many trips carting things up and down to my fourth-floor walk-up were done!

I even got to stay in a really nice bed & breakfast right in the heart of Harvard as I had won a free night’s stay as part of a graduation raffle….

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Wonderful ending to a wonderful year — hasta la vista to one of my favorite places in the world 🙂 !

Here We Go Again!

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The movers have cleared everything out and it’s down to me, two suitcases and a backpack once again… 🙂

As most of you know, I will be returning to Mexico to work in programs that provide low-income, at-risk youth with the education and other support they need to make a successful transition to adulthood and a higher quality of life for themselves, their families and their communities. That’s still the plan(!!) but I will be delaying my move to the south a bit to head back to Cambodia to help out at Journeys Within Our Community (JWOC) for a couple/three months. Our Managing Director at JWOC took ill and had to return to the U.S., so I’ll be filling in for a bit, hiring a new MD, and working to ensure a smooth transition.

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I expect to return to the U.S. in September when my first grandchild arrives…

Baby Shoes

… and then be on my way to Mexico in October!

Mexico

Note:  My cell phone won’t be connected while I’m in Cambodia, but I will be reachable by all channels WiFi: email, iMessages, FaceTime, Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp…. :-). Please stay in touch!

What I’ve Learned From My Son

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I just got to spend two days watching a professional baseball team that my son now plays for… Matt was drafted two weeks ago by the Cleveland Indians. A week later, they flew him out to Cleveland where he joined up with their single-A team, the Mahoning Valley Scrappers (Niles, Ohio). Thursday he had his physical, signed his contract, participated in media day with the local press, and moved in with his host family. Friday, he was on a bus for three games in West Virginia (Black Bears; Pirates affiliate) – and back on the bus Sunday night for three games in Batavia, NY (Muckdogs; Marlins affiliate) where I was able to meet up with him.

To be honest, I truly never thought this day would happen. Of course, through all of the 18+ years of the boys playing baseball, I have encouraged them, supported them, tried to help them figure out how to get to the next level – and (almost*) always smiled and made enthusiastic noises when Matt talked about his driving aspiration to get drafted some day and play professionally.

Every kid who plays at some point says “I want to be a baseball player when I grow up.” But I never in a million years believed it could happen. I mean, really, how could you look at a kid going into his freshman year in high school at 5’5”, maybe 140 lbs, with braces on his teeth and believe that he had a snowball’s chance of becoming this?

But he did. And I’ve been thinking about that a lot in the last two weeks as we’ve been walking around in an elated daze with Matt setting off on this new adventure. I’ve realized that there is something I need to learn from this. I don’t think I’ve ever in my life chosen a direction that had a low probability of coming true. Throughout my life, I have been nothing if not pragmatic in my decision-making. Certainly I have taken risks, but they were always carefully evaluated risks that I had every reason to believe I could overcome…

There are a ton of things I’ve learned over the days, weeks, months and years of baseball seasons with my boys:

  • The only restaurant in Brecksville, Ohio (Go Bees!! and Go Gators!!) with a kitchen open after 10pm when you get back from an away game is Sakura Sushi; in Green Bay, Wisconsin (Go Bullfrogs!!) it’s Old Chicago
  • How to find a Subway sandwich place in almost any small town in Ohio and surrounding states where travel baseball is played
  • How to keep 15 sets of uniforms sorted out properly when doing team laundry overnight in hotels and laundromats (Sharpie markings on the waistbands are a must!)
  • The parents in the stands with opaque water bottles or coffee thermoses may not be drinking what you think they are
  • There is actually a large and thriving medical specialty in the field of pediatric orthopedic sports medicine
  • One can survive 4 straight years of watching T-ball, but barely!!
  • You can actually eat Chipotle more than 3 nights in a week without turning into a burrito
  • The best place in the world to be is in the stands on a summer evening with the sun going down and my scorebook in hand watching the boys (men!) warm up
  • Baseball families are an amazing and supportive network to be a part of
  • If a kid gets hit in the thigh with a fastball, it makes a bruise where you can actually count the stitches from the ball that hit him
  • And many more….

But it is just this last week that I learned the most important thing from my son:  If there is something you truly care about, maybe it shouldn’t matter that there’s only a tiny chance of making it. Maybe you should let yourself care about it and work for it and see what happens… take the risk and go. Even the journey and the striving can be pretty cool! In the last few years as Matt’s baseball path kept going and going well beyond what I ever expected, I’ve said many times – “Wow, what an amazing day! Even if this ends tomorrow, how COOL was that!” I said it again today 🙂   And I hope to do a better job of living it in my own life as I continue on my own next adventures…

Tuesday evening at the ballpark…
Very cool to have “players’ tickets” waiting for you at the gate
Muckdog!!
Monday evening at the ballpark…
And he thought THIS was the absolute best day of his life (age 4)
Mahoning Valley Media Day 2015 — Matt is #33 on the right
He had some growing to do
Muckdogs’ stadium
The contract
Go Tribe!

* As many of you know, we did have some extremely heated debates about academic quality and future career options when he decided to forego a baseball scholarship to Holy Cross in favor of the University of Tennessee. Since I was sure he was never actually going to become a professional baseball player, I really did not want to see him walk away from the broader Holy Cross experience…. I was wrong!!

Class of 1985… and 2015

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Anything worth doing is worth doing twice — even if it is 30 years apart!  And a Harvard Graduation is a celebration not to be missed.  A few highlight pictures with captions….

All graduates process through the streets of Cambridge from their school to Harvard Yard in the morning
Hamming it up in the streets of Cambridge
Acres of graduates in Harvard Yard
More acres of graduates in Harvard Yard
Ed.M in International Education Policy
Kyle & Matt made it in spirit — dog tags tucked under my robe
The IEP gang before….
….the IEP gang after
We made it!!
Woo hoo!

On the morning of graduation day, ALL the graduates from the entire university come together in Harvard Yard and are pronounced to have earned their degrees, school by school.  One of the really fun traditions is that each of the graduate schools cheers and waves something symbolic in the air when it is their turn — check out the Harvard Commencement video at about minute 49 for the Ed School and our children’s books 🙂  [In full honesty, I have to admit that I actually thought the Design School had the coolest symbol as they had built structures made out of Duplos and stuck them to their mortar boards!!]

In the afternoon, each graduate school heads back to their own campus for the awarding of the diplomas.  Dean Jim Ryan gave a speech that has really stuck with us all on the topic of sins of omission — “you should see what needs doing and do it without being told.”  You can read or listen to the speech here.  He’s a terrific speaker and funny, so listening is better and it IS absolutely worth 24 minutes and 29 seconds of your life to do so 😉

And then Dean Ryan shook hands with 701 graduates, including this one….

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Latin America Learns

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Invitation Option 2 You may recall that last August, I joined a group of about 50 fellow newbie Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) students at an intensive pre-program for the International Education Policy (IEP) group.  During those couple of weeks, I not only got my legs under me to start the Master’s degree program — but I met a small group of people with whom I got to do amazing things in the following 9 months. As we introduced ourselves (repeatedly!) during those first days, we kept hearing one another’s voices:

  • “I want to work in Latin America and focus on teacher motivation and development….”
  • “I want to work in Latin American and find ways to support vulnerable youth…” [that one was me 🙂 ]
  • “I want to work in Latin America in early childhood education and development…”
  • “I want to work in Latin America and find ways to use education to address violence and conflict…”

The specific countries we came from and the areas of focus differed a bit, but what was the same — what we could hear in one another’s voices — was that we care deeply about the region and believe that education is the fundamental engine that will enable Latin America and its people reach their full potential. So we came together to form the Latin America Education Forum (LAEF) with the goal of creating a larger community that — together — could spark the change, the innovation, the action to make that happen.

Fernando Reimers, our advisor for both IEP and LAEF, is fond of quoting John Amos Comenius – a scholar from the early 1600’s who is generally viewed as “the father of modern education.”  Comenius said “Let us have but one end in view, the welfare of humanity; and let us put aside all selfishness in consideration of language, nationality or religion.”  For Comenius, for Fernando, and for us, that is the ultimate goal of education.  To establish, maintain and strengthen the capacities and social cohesion that allow all members of society to participate and engage in building and shaping the world we live in together.

And so Latin America Learns was born, with the theme of Building Participation & Engagement for the 21st Century.  As the first-ever conference on Latin American Education to be held at Harvard, we were really starting from ground zero!  It wasn’t exactly like “hey, you’ve got a story and I’ve got a box of old clothes, let’s go out behind my grandpa’s barn and put on a show!!”  But it was darn close. In retrospect, we had NO idea how much work it was going to be and how crazy we were to try it while we were also fulfilling the requirements for our Master’s program — but sometimes ignorance is bliss… and we did it!

We picked areas we felt were central to our theme: peace, inclusiveness, teaching, a vision for the 21st century.  And for each topic we invited a group of people who are actors in those spaces for Latin America. Speakers included current Ministers of Education, the Dean of HGSE and an array of educators, policymakers, innovators and researchers — we were a bit awed by them all to be honest(!) and were honored that they made the trip to be present.

The Role of Education in the Peace Process
The Role of Education in Fostering an Inclusive Society
The Future of Teaching
Vision for Latin American Education in the 21st Century

Our keynote speaker, founder of the Rodrigo Mendes Institute, started us off in the morning with some of the most moving moments of the day.  Following an accident that made him a quadriplegic, Rodrigo created an organization committed to building an inclusive society through education and art — focused on advocacy, research, experience exchange, and training — making huge strides in Brazil, Latin America and beyond. Rodrigo The day was filled with discussion, debate, challenge — and non-stop talking in Spanish, in Portuguese, in English.  The Ministers came away with input and ideas to help shape their visions and policies upon their return, and everyone came away as part of a new network for action.

By the end of the day, we were ready for a fiesta — and a fiesta was had!  One of our classmates from the Arts in Education program pulled out all the stops and we celebrated our 8 months of hard work together and an incredible day.  Performances, desserts, drinks, dancing… Salud!

ONE HAPPY TEAM!  I loved what we were able to do together in just a few short months — and I can’t wait to see the difference this group will make in the world in the years ahead.  Honored to be one of them and looking forward to working with them all again and again and again! LAEFTeam Oh — and then there was the day after!  We had the pleasure of spending the day wandering Boston with Minister Cynthia del Aguila of Guatemala and Alejandra Garza from Universidad Carolina in Saltillo, Mexico.  We found ourselves at the Public Garden and I happened to have just bought a copy of Make Way for Ducklings (a Boston classic kids book that just happens to be set in the Public Garden).  So, being Ed School students, we had story hour…. of course!! Story Hour in the Public Garden