This girl has so much confidence. I wish I had half of what she has. I could learn from her. Confidence is such a big part of our success in life.

I often tell the girls, speak up! Folks tend to believe and respect those who speak with confidence. I hope they will remember that as they get older. Seems they’re off to a great start.

You exist in the subconscious without opposition. It’s but a quick trip to the tongue, where you roll off with ease. And with no real impediment, you penetrate the minds of those within earshot. But the utterance of you is not even necessary. You seep from the pores of those who let you live in them. You hang in the air like a foul stench. A simple waving of the hand in front of our nose doesn’t always rid you. You are resilient. You are very convincing. So much “evidence” proves you right. And before any of us know it, we are a slave to you.

To jump, to run, to improve, to love, to live, to earn, to forgive, to forget, to change. You will convince us none of this is within our grasp. To be intelligent, to recover, to heal, to be strong, to let ourselves cry, to take risk, to be happy, to be extraordinary. You will keep us from a life fulfilled if we allow you. [Read more →]

It’s been a minute since we first learned of T-One’s fate regarding SOMA school district’s gifted and talented program. Since then, there hasn’t been much movement on getting her into the classes. We have gone through the proper channels but the administration has been, shall we say, slow to respond. Although we finally have a meeting with the Assistant Superintendent, our patience is already thin.

SOMA School District

In the last few weeks we have sent a few letters, made a few phone calls, paid a couple of visits and talked to other parents. What we discovered is we are not the only parents upset about how our district identifies and addresses the needs of children. At least one lawsuit has been threatened. We also discovered a heavy layer of lip service in regards to closing the well publicized achievement gap in the district. It is the district’s alleged number one priority but all that has been done is putting together a 50+ member panel to “make recommendations”. Seriously? C’mon. [Read more →]

T-One Hard At Work

Earlier this school year I received T-One’s NJ ASK scores which test elementary school age children in NJ in language arts and math. The scores are grouped into three categories: “partially proficient” (which is just a pc way to say that the child scored below standard), “proficient” and “advanced proficient”. T-One scored at the upper end of the “proficient”. I must admit when I saw the scores I was both a little surprised and a little disappointed. The girl does so many things so well and things seem to come so naturally to her that it comes as a small shock when she’s deemed “average” at anything.

Of course as parents we think our kids are extraordinary at everything, both good and bad. In my mind, no kid is a better athlete than T-One, no kid is more creative than C-Thunda and no kids are more beautiful than either of them. There’s also the flip side. No kids get into more mischief or are as sassy or are as hair-grayingly maddening as my children. They are extraordinary in every way. But average they ain’t. At least, in my mind.

So when I opened the envelope containing T-One’s NJ ASK scores, I was a little baffled. [Read more →]

Flickr by 77krc

So daughter number one (Thing One or T-One) complained to me the other day that she had to do yet another paper on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She then went on to explain how she’ll have to do a paper a year all the way up through middle school. Still being of single digit age, I doubt my daughter has any real understanding of King’s significance, especially in the Obama era.

I asked her what was wrong with writing a paper a year on King. She responded that she was running out of things to say. Mind you, each paper so far has been a one paragraph essay. She went on to explain, “All he did was help end segregation!” (As if that’s some small feat.)

My mother (The Duchess), who was in earshot, gasped. “All he did?” My mother grew up in the segregated south, participated in sit-ins and marched on Washington in ’63. So to her saying that s all King did was, well, a little disappointing. But my mom wasn’t so disappointed in my daughter. She was disappointed in me. Somehow I had dropped the ball in making my daughter aware of her history. Where we had been as people of color in this country and how far we had come.

“That little girl needs to know!”  [Read more →]