Going Into Saturday (with Thunderstorms Last Night), Trying to Focus on What Matters Most and Planning Ahead so It Doesn't Cause Any Emergencies

It's been a year. It's been quite a few years of trauma, too, and my nature is to stand my ground, to look for hope, and to go forward to do what is best for teachers and young people. I'm fueled by the precious time I had with Chitunga in Iowa and I'm thinking about seeing my family in a couple of weeks and to celebrate my nephew's graduation. In the meantime, there's a mountain of work to be done in July in support of writers in southern Connecticut and the land has been planted so that we can bloom in amazing ways.

Thankful to Akbaru and Pam last night, for gathering over salmon and pasta (even Klondike peanut butter bars...so good). Always great to unwind on a Friday night over good company and food and to catch up with an amazing kid. 

My house currently looks like a warehouse of books, supplies, and plans for the literacy labs and teacher institute, and I need to get on top of this over the weekend so I'm ready for the days ahead. I also had a call from a National Writing Project colleague in Long Island who has been going through her own bureaucratic trauma, which seems to be the ways of higher education these days.

Excited for the rain...good for the milkweed I planted all over the yard. It matched the disappointing news that a project I worked on for the last year was tossed by the publishers at the last minute because of academic hubris and language. We feel terrible informing you that we need to cut ties, especially because the work you submitted is absolutely amazing and we are better people for reading it. Alas, this is the way of our institutions, and in the end we have to follow what they see moving forward. Unfortunately, your on-the-ground, scholarship in action is not what they are looking for at this time. They are looking for linguistic theory and criticism, rather than a display of what works with refugee-background youth and day-to-day practice. 

That's the world I live in...the disconnect between the hard work of teachers who work with youth vs. the scholars who work with the intellectual battle of controlling language. I just shake my head.

It's all good. As Akbar pointed out nonchalantly last night, "Crandall, you serve a higher power and mission many of us will never know." 

I guess I do. I work for what is right. Practical. Useful. I'm not into the game of hubris and self-aggrandizing and, for that, it's easy to toss me to the side. 

I've learned this lesson many times and it is the way of these parts. I am strong. I simply need to repurpose the project so it does good for those who actually labor in the challenging demographics of K-12 schools with little, to no, support. I will defend classroom teachers and young people every time.