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Texas: Black and Brown Activists Invite You to Join Them Sunday Morning at State Capitol in Austin

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2023 //
1

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

From: Black Brown Dialogues on Policy co-founders: Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. and

Gary Bledsoe, Esq. , Chair of the Texas NAACP

 

For more information, please contact Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. at

blackbrownpolicy@gmail.com (512) 232-6008

 

In this moment of a dismantling of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in Texas colleges and universities, along with toxic, polarizing battles in the Texas State Legislature and in local school boards throughout Texas, we invite you to the Inaugural Black Brown Dialogues on Policy Capitol Storytelling Event during the Texas Book Festival.

This in-person and online event takes place in the Member’s Lounge (E2.1002), at the Texas

State Capitol on Sunday, November 12, 2023 at 10:00 a.m. CST in partnership with National LULAC, the Texas NAACP, Mexican American Legislative Caucus, Latino Texas Policy Center, and the Texas Center for Education Policy.

Virtually, this event will be livestreamed and available live online at www.facebook.com/TeamBlackBrown.

Now, more than ever, we must come together as a Black and Brown community to amplify our collective power through community storytelling.Treat yourself on this day to oral stories of Black and Brown coalitional and partnership work that has been carried out throughout time in Texas. Author and Texas oral history researcher Dr. Max Krochmal will present from his book, Civil Rights in Black and Brown (University of Texas Press). UT History Professor Emilio Zamora and Texas NAACP President Gary Bledsoe will share instances in history when Black and Brown people worked together in solidarity. The Honorable Aicha Davis will discuss the importance of Black and Brown coalitional work at the Texas State Board of Education.

Former Ft. Worth ISD Board Member Dr. Jacinto “Cinto” Ramos, My Brother’s Keeper

Director Rickie Clark, Round Rock ISD’s Tiffanie Harrison will present on local school board struggles. Independent Scholar Martha P. Cotera will share her wealth of experience in Austin and enduring accomplishments by Austin’s Black and Brown working class community. A panel of students will close the event with their reflections of what was shared and how we move forward.

“Organizing this event is a dream come true,” says BBDP co-founder Gary Bledsoe. “It is to our own detriment if we fail to come together as a Black and Brown community to address matters of mutual concern.” This event is free and open to the public. We encourage community members, university faculty, students, advocates, and lawmakers to attend in person and online.

For more information about the town hall meeting, please contact Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. at

blackbrownpolicy@gmail.com.

WHEN: Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.

WHERE: Member’s Lounge (E2.1002), Texas State Capitol Annex Underground

Virtual: https://facebook.com/TeamBlackBrown

INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITY: Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. and Gary Bledsoe, Esq.

Categories Censorship, Civil Rights, Creativity, Education Reform, Equity, Freedom, Joy, Texas

The Best Halloween Block in the World

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2023 //
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If you have never experienced Halloween on Garden Place in Brooklyn, you are missing a treat. I lived on Garden Place for 25 years and participated in the Halloween frenzy annually. Typically, I bought 3,000 pieces of candy and started handing them out at 4 pm. By 7, we were cleaned out. Three wild and wonderful hours.

This article catches the flavor of happy mayhem.

Categories Joy

Remembering a Beloved Band Director Who Died in a Tragic Bus Crash Enroute to Band Camp

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2023 //
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Recently a bus carrying members of the Farmingdale (Long Island), New York, high school marching band to band camp in Pennsylvania crashed through a road barrier and rolled down a 50-foot deep ravine. Two people were killed: the marching band director, Gina Pellettierre, and a retired teacher who was a chaperone, Bea Ferrari.

Their deaths brought an outpouring of grief from the community. Especially touching were the tributes from Ms. P’s former students. She made an indelible imprint on their lives. She also modeled the life of a great teacher, an inspiration to her students.

This article appeared in the North Fork Patch, a local newspaper. See this one too by Michael DeSantis, a reporter for The Patch.

FARMINGDALE, NY — Gina Pellettiere, the director of the Farmingdale High School marching band and wind ensemble, left a lasting impact with every student-musician she ever taught and every person she ever worked with, all agree…

Joanna McCoskey Wiltshire, class of 2010

“Gina, or Ms. P as we called her, was a force to be reckoned with, with a smile that lit up the room. She made me believe that anything I wanted to do was possible, all while being able to make me laugh until my sides hurt. I looked to her as the inspiration to go into music teaching, especially with an emphasis on wind conducting. She encouraged this love in me by giving me conducting pointers anytime I was on the podium and giving me multiple opportunities to practice in front of the band. She loved her job but most importantly, we knew that she loved us. Gina made band our home and safe space. I will never be able to thank her enough for the impact she had on my life and for showing me an example of the educator I want to become — someone who was passionate and dedicated to her craft and the music, all while never forgetting to stop and live in the moment with her students. I will miss her terribly and I mourn her loss along with the rest of the Farmingdale community

“I just am grateful to have ever had her as my teacher and to have known her. As a music teacher in another state now, I kind of took for granted how amazing our music education truly was. Her education and passion for music prepared me for a lifelong love for music, so much so that I made it my career. I can only hope to be half the teacher she was for us one day.

“My favorite memories of her were her pranks. One day when we were on spring break, it happened to be April Fool’s Day, and Joanna and I went to visit the high school and Ms. P during 9th period band. Before class started, she told us she had dipped Mike Tuzzolo’s mouthpiece in salt, so we just kept an eye on him for his reaction, and it was so funny. She fell over laughing. I think her joking around and pranking kids just made her bond with them that much stronger.”

Brian Entwistle, class of 2012

“Her love of The Office is the reason I’m a professional musician today. That piano arrangement she threw at me in music theory one day led to everything I’m doing now.

As for memories… The biggest, on a personal level, will always be the time I performed Ewazen’s ‘Pastorale’ with her and Mr. K. It’s such a beautiful piece of music, but it’s forever going to be special to me for that reason.

As for some fun memories… aside from ‘Hey Joe’ and the muffin joke, that faculty vs. student volleyball game in 2011 will always be a highlight.

And the time she got scolded by Ms. Lindsley for throwing a mannequin leg onto the stage from the pit during Prank Day.”

Alex Cox, class of 2013

“Ms. Pellettiere didn’t stand out for just a few moments of the years she was with FHS. She made every memory just by being her energetic and intense self. A passionate person without limits and made sure everyone was valued for who they were.”

Joe Pantorno, class of 2009

“Ms. P always had a knack for speaking to students on the same level. There was no air of superiority or that traditional, ‘I’m the teacher and you’re the student, do as I say,’ dynamic. She always had a way of getting the very best out of her students and knew the right buttons to press for each individual, whether it was motivation, tough love or a nurturing pat on the back. It was always so clear that she wanted us to succeed and improve, because she legitimately cared about us — and every year she seemingly had an army of 100 during concert season or 300 during marching band season that would run through a wall for her because of that.”

Deborah Kick, class of 2011

“I was in wind ensemble all four years and marching band all four years. What I loved the most about Ms. P is that she saw all of us collectively and individually as musicians and human beings.

You were a wonderful teacher and human being. You saw your students as individuals while also recognizing what we can accomplish as a group. You made band fun, even during the most grueling moments of band camp and the tensest rehearsals before concerts or NYSSMA Majors. How lucky I was to learn under you. Your lessons carry me through my career today.

I will forever miss your warmth, your great hugs, your bright smile, and shout of ‘Deb Kick!’ when you saw me (I was never just ‘Deb’). I hope I can bring a fraction of the welcome, joy, and kindness to those in my life that you brought to everyone.

I hope all of us Dalers can find some peace in ourselves and in our community soon.”

Please open the link to finish the article.

Categories Arts Education, Creativity, Joy, Teachers and Teaching

John Merrow: How to Save Public Schools! Involve the Community!

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2023 //
10

John Merrow has some excellent ideas about how to broaden the base of support in your community, town, or city. Reach out and involve others, people who have little direct contact with the schools. Seeing what the students are doing is a big counterweight to the lies and propaganda of extremist groups. Long before people had television sets, the school was the hub of community life. Friends and neighbors turned out to watch the spelling bee, to see the football games, to enjoy student performances. No one dreamed of opening up corporate chains or using taxpayer dollars to fund competing schools.

Open the link to finish reading the post. If you have more ideas, please comment.

Merrow writes:

The problem with the truism “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child” is that most villagers have no direct connection to children or to the schools they go to. Only about 25 percent of homes have school age children, and in some communities that number drops into the teens. Even if one includes households with grandparents, the percentage probably won’t reach 40. And although support for local public schools is at an all-time high (54%), that may not be high enough to withstand the vicious attacks on the institution by “Moms for Liberty” and other radical right groups. Educators need to do more to win the support of ‘outsiders.’

The 60-80% of households without a strong connection to public education will determine the future of public schools.  Because they vote on school budgets, their opinion of schools, teachers, and students matter.  That’s why educators must develop and adopt strategies to win their support.  It’s not enough for good things to be happening in schools; ‘the outsiders’ need to be supportive, and a good way to win their support is to get them involved.

Because students who are engaged in their work are the best advertisement for public education, adults need to do two things:  1) Make sure the work is engaging and 2) that it involves the world outside the classroom.  Substitute “Production” (meaning that students are actually producingknowledge) for “Regurgitation” (where students parrot back what their teachers have told them).

Start with a public website and a YouTube Channel that features student productions done outside of school–in their community.  Whatever their ages, kids should work in teams, because it’s safer and it’s also how the adult world functions.  Every smartphone is also a great video camera, and so young people can interview adults in their community, then edit those interviews to create oral histories of people and places in their neighborhood–a sure crowd pleaser because everyone loves talking about themselves. When students know that their work is going to be out there for everyone to see, they will go the extra mile to make them as good as possible.  Adults can help set high standards, of course.  

The possibilities are endless:

*Students can create a photo gallery of the residents of their apartment building or their street and then post portraits on the web for all to see and talk about. Include photos of how the neighborhoods have changed over time.

*Art students can sketch portraits of business storefronts, or workers and bosses, also to be posted on the web.

*The school’s jazz quintet can perform at community centers and post the recordings on the YouTube channel.

*Video teams can interview adults in senior citizen centers around a chosen theme (best job, favorite trip, et cetera), to be edited into a short video for the web. Producing short biographies of ordinary citizens will teach all sorts of valuable skills like clear writing, teamwork and meeting deadlines.

*Music and drama students can rehearse and then present their productions at retirement homes and senior centers — but with a twist: involve some of the adults in the process (a small part in the play, a role in selecting the music, and so on).

Categories Community Schools, Creativity, Education Reform, Hope, Joy, Love, Propaganda, Students

No, Mike Petrilli, We Must Not Revive NCLB

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2023 //
57

Mike Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, published an article in the New York Times yesterday in which he lamented the “learning loss” caused by the pandemic and called for a new national effort, like No Child Left Behind, to instill rigor and accountability, which he says will raise test scores. Time to bring back tough love, he wrote.

I have a hard time criticizing Mike Petrilli because I like him. When I was on the board of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation/Institute, I got to know Mike, and he’s a genuinely good guy. But when I left the board of the TBF Institute in 2009, it was because I no longer shared its beliefs and values. I concluded as early as 2007 that No Child Left Behind was a failure. I wrote an article in the conservative journal EdNext in 2008 about NCLB, saying “End It,” paired with an article by the late John Chubb saying, “Mend It.”TBF sponsored charter schools in Ohio—a move I opposed because think tanks should be evaluating policy, not implementing it; also, during the time I was on the board, the charters sponsored by TBF failed.

By the time I left, I had concluded that the NCLB emphasis on high-stakes standardized testing was a disaster. It caused narrowing the curriculum, gaming the system, cheating, excessive test prep, and squeezed the joy of teaching and learning out of classrooms.

Furthermore, the very idea that Congress and the U.S. Department of Education were stigmatizing schools as failures and closing them was outrageous. I worked in the US ED. There are many very fine career civil servants there, but very few educators. In Congress, the number of experienced educators is tiny. Schools can’t be reformed or fixed by the President, Congress, and the Department of Education.

NCLB and Race to the Top were cut from the same cloth: Contempt for professional educators, indifference to the well-established fact that test scores are highly correlated with family income, and a deep but misguided belief that punishing educators and closing schools were cures for low test scores. Both the law (NCLB) and the program (RTTT) were based on the assumption that rewards and punishments directed at teachers and principals would bring about an educational renaissance. They were wrong. On the day that the Obama administration left office, the U.S. Department of Education quietly released a study acknowledging that Race to the Top, having spent billions on “test-and-punish” strategies, had no significant impact on test scores.

And as icing on the cake, Mike Petrilli wrote an article in 2017 about the latest disappointing NAEP scores, lamenting “a lost decade.” That “lost decade” was 2007-2017, which included a large chunk of NCLB and RTTT. In addition, the Common Core standards, released in 2010, were a huge flop. TBF was paid millions by the Gates Foundation both to evaluate them and to promote them. The NAEP scores remained flat after their introduction. Please, no more Common Core.

I wrote two books about the failure of NCLB and RTTT: The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (2010) and Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools.

Mercedes Schneider and I both wrote posts commending Mike Petrilli in 2019 when he wrote about the “dramatic achievement gains” of the 1990s and early 2000s before NCLB kicked in. He attributed those gains to improving economic conditions for families and declining child poverty rates. I wanted to give him a big kiss for recognizing that students do better in school when they are healthy and well-nourished.

So, what did No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top produce? A series of disasters, such as the Tennessee Achievement School District and Michigan’s Educational Achievement Authority, both gone. A landscape of corporate charter chains, for-profit charters, for-profit online charters, and now vouchers, in which red states commit to pay the tuition of students in religious schools and fly-by-night private schools. A national teacher shortage; a sharp decline in people entering the teaching profession.

Please, no more tough love. No more punishment for students, teachers, principals, and schools. Let bad ideas die.

Categories Accountability, Campbell's Law, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Cruelty, Disruption, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Failure, For-Profit, History, Inequity, Joy, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, Standardized Testing, State Takeover, Teach for America TFA, Turnaround Schools, U.S. Department of Education, Vouchers

The Dallas Miracle! Superintendent Wants Joy in the Classroom, Not Test Prep!

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2023 //
22

Bethany Erickson wrote in D Magazine about the revolution in Dallas. The superintendent, Stephanie Elidzalde, declared that test prep is dead. She is determined to make school joyful. Imagine that! I have been waiting a long time for a superintendent with the brains and guts to do what she’s doing. The teacher shortage in Dallas has shrunk dramatically. Not surprising. What wonderful news.

Erickson writes:

School started at Dallas ISD today, and parents of students attending school at any of the 230 campuses may notice something different this year.

During her state of the district address last May, superintendent Stephanie Elizalde said the district would soon eschew the numerous tests designed to find out whether students were ready for the STAAR in favor of, as she put it, more “joy” in the classroom.

In last year’s address, she declared teaching to the test was “officially dead,” and added that some schools were testing as frequently as every few weeks in preparation for the STAAR test, and doing classwork in between those assessments that also practiced STAAR strategy.

“How about we put them all together and we have a huge bonfire?” she said.

That doesn’t mean that there won’t be occasional checks to make sure a student is understanding concepts learned in the classroom. But it does mean that Elizalde recognizes something many parents have been saying for years—the frequent testing only amps up anxiety about the test.

“Do kids need to know what the tests look like? Yes,” Elizalde said in May. “But do we need to be doing that once every six weeks, once every nine weeks? No we don’t. … Because we worry so much about the test, we have added pressure in a way that actually is hindering the success of how students do.”

And while there wasn’t an actual bonfire, Elizalde reiterated that stance last week in a note to students and parents.

 “As I said in my State of the District speech, test scores will take care of themselves if joy – and on-grade-level materials – are in the classroom,” she said. “We do not need to drill and kill to prepare for the state assessment.”

Elizalde said the amount of testing and preparation for testing had “gotten completely out of control.” The district tallied up all the time teachers were spending preparing for tests and testing, which equated to roughly 18 school days. 

The district is providing a full curriculum to teachers with lesson plans that will allow them more time to teach, Elizalde says. The aim at uniformity will also help a district where students often switch schools during the school year.

During her state of the district address, Elizalde said the goal was to provide a consistent framework, not to have teachers reciting lessons by rote.

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Anecdotally it appears that mileage varies on teacher experiences with the lesson plans. Some teachers have said they didn’t have all the materials their lesson plans required. But others said they felt they had a great deal of freedom to teach beyond the lesson plan, so long as they met their specific goals and taught the required skills. 

The other lynchpin in Elizalde’s joy ride is making sure every student has a teacher in their classroom on the first day of school. Earlier this month, she told teachers at the Dallas ISD’s New Teacher Academy held at the Winspear Opera House that the district had fewer than 140 open positions out of its 10,000 total teaching jobs. (Last year, that number was 220.)

She also reiterated to those new hires that they would not be teaching to the test. “This whole movement is going to allow teachers to truly feel both the science and the art that is teaching,” she said.

It will be interesting to see which provides the district with a path to success. As a parent of a student, I’m rooting for the joy plan, especially if we can also figure out a way to pay teachers what they’re worth, and the state legislature can come out of the next special session robustly funding public education.

Categories Courage, Creativity, Curriculum, Dallas, Education Reform, Joy, Standardized Testing, Texas

Steve Nelson: These Are REAL Parental Rights—and Children’s Rights Too!

By dianeravitch
July 19, 2023 //
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Steve Nelson is a retired educator. In this post, he contrasts the demands of the fake “parental rights” folk with a genuine agenda for the rights of parents and children:

As is true in many aspects of current American politics, the right wing conservatives dominate the discourse on education. As is also true in other aspects of current American politics, it seems not to matter that they are wrong – terribly wrong – and are gradually unraveling the critically important institution of public education.

The assault is on two broad fronts:

*The persistent efforts to privatize education through charter and voucher schemes, accompanied by defunding traditional public schools and diverting support to all manner of incompetent opportunists.

*An overlapping campaign to bring more Christianity into publicly-funded education and remove any and all references to race, gender, sexuality and normal functions of the human body.

In service of these goals they have successfully captured the PR realm, with groups like the attractively named Moms for Liberty. Who wouldn’t love moms or liberty?

The most damage is being done with legislation at the local and state level. Right-wingers have taken control of school boards and many gerrymandered state legislatures. Once again, these zealots have seized the PR reins by using the inarguably appealing mantra of “parental rights.” What parents want their rights taken away? So, the significant body of laws and policies that already protect the rights of parents is being absurdly enhanced with laws and policies that give parents the “right” to dictate what books children can read, what bathrooms children can use, and what public health measures can be exercised. They also claim the right to micromanage curricula, thereby ensuring that a white, Eurocentric, Christian, heteronormative experience is enjoyed by all. Ozzie and Harriet are applauding from the grave.

We liberals and progressives have done a piss poor job of responding in kind. Lots of folks (like me!) opine passionately to minuscule effect, given that our readers are in the hundreds or, rarely, thousands. There are politicians and pundits who argue against the nefarious work of this loud, conservative minority, but we are seldom, if ever, on the offensive.

We too need slogans and initiatives with catchy names that capture the imagination.

Perhaps:

*Moms for Keeping Crazy Moms Out of Our Schools and Libraries.

*Parents for the Rights of Teachers to Teach Without Nut-bag Interference

*Citizens for Keeping God Safe in Our Churches and Out of Our Politics

*Parents of Black and LGBTQ Students Who Won’t Take This Shit Anymore

Nelson then lists an educational bill of rights that the overwhelming majority of parents and teachers would likely endorse:

Then, if and when we can get the crazies under control, the parents in the majority can address the actual needs of children. What might happen if a grassroots effort gathered momentum and demanded that schools and school systems adopt this Bill of Rights?

Bill of Educational Rights

The undersigned insist that our school(s) and all teachers:

Open the link to read Steve Nelson’s Bill of Educational Rights.

Would you endorse these principles?

Categories Censorship, Childhood, Creativity, Education Industry, Education Reform, Joy, Parent Groups, Parents, Play, Privatization, Real Education, Students

Rcharvet: How I Taught My Students to Love Reading

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2023 //
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Rcharvet, a retired teacher and regular commenter here, explains how the pedagogy of the Commin Core taught his students to dislike reading. They were supposed to read excerpts of books, not a complete book. They were expected to analyze the meaning of words and sentences instead of following the narrative of the story. Mr. Charvet became a subversive. He explains here.

We had to use a program called Study Sync. The kids called it, “Study Stink.” It was a canned computer program that used excerpts from stories. It drove me nuts. A lot of highly-intellectual processing for kids who were “emerging readers.” I had to “study my brains out” to figure out what the “end game” was and then how to explain/teach it to my students. Once “I” got it (not lying took a lot of study time on my part) I could teach it. It was still boring.

We had “Lord of the Flies” but only an excerpt. None of the kids got it. I found several YouTube videos that reviewed and explained the story. Once I did that, one of my students said, “I went home and read the whole book three times! It was one of my favorites.”

When I taught reading, I would read out loud so kids would HEAR the characters voices (yes I did the voices as well). For struggling readers they typically move through a sentence like they are walking on glass. But, we worked together.

One book that we started was “The Pig Man.” It started out slow (geez I was slow) but started liking the book to the point kids were saying, “Can we read The Pig Man and find out what happened?” They felt the words. They connected to the characters. We could ask questions like, “If you were Tommy what would you do in this case? What should the Pig Man do about the broken statue?” Then because I was making a connection to the book and trying to follow the curriculum I was deemed “moving too slow” and the department head said, “Just collect all the books and move on.”

What did I know?

And then the kids had to take Accelerated Reader tests. This told them what type of book they qualified to read by their AR or Lexile number. When they went to the library the librarian would tell them, “Oh, the rocket ship book is not in your Lexile number range, you cannot read about rocket ships.” I grumbled something like, “This is f-ing messed up under my breath.”

Then, I noticed their test scores all went down. I asked them, “I am curious. You were all doing so well and then I noticed that your AR scores dropped (it’s okay) but I am just curious.” They told me the test added a clock-timer that their eyes kept looking at. “We got anxious because we could tell we only had so much time to answer the question.” Some Kids decided to punch any answer just to be done. Wow, that was fun.

And when we went to distant learning, one little girl asked, “Mr. Charvet, can I read this book because it is not my Lexile number.” I told her, “You read any book you want. Just do what I told you: if you don’t understand a word, look it up or put it on your sticky note so you can keep reading. I will help you later. But if you keep stopping, you will lose the flow and that’s no fun.”

The reading was painful to the point, I wanted to skip it. But, I did find some great FREE programs online that the kids loved as long as they didn’t tell anybody — making reading fun, our little secret.

I printed out all the papers because most kids like to have something they can “feel” when they read. The computer reading hurt my eyes; it created headaches for many of my kids.

When I taught art I had a magazine cabinet for collages. I looked up one day and there were a group of middle school boys giggling and having a good time. “Hey you kids! What are you doing back there?” I reminded them there was no reading, just collecting pictures. Then I said, “Nah, what did you find?” “Mr. Charvet, check out this giant spider egg that was buried in the ground. And look at this old boat they found. And look at this…and this… and this. They had so much fun. I said, “You know I come back here to look for pictures, too. Then an hour goes by after I read all these great articles and learned so much. You know, this is the stuff (by knowing) you can win thousands of dollars on a game show!” For crying out loud, they gave away $250K for knowing that Frodo (LOTR) was not a Pokemon. We all laughed, but that kind of reading didn’t count because they could only read books. You know REAL books.

I loved reading everything from matchbook covers and especially on the back of cereal boxes — to the comics that would take me on adventures.

Nowadays, “Yes we know Spiderman saved the day. But what was the tone of his thinking? What do you think he meant by using this word? In sentence three, he used plethora. How can that be applied in other ways?” Man, we were just happy Spiderman got rid of the bad guys. Peace out.

Categories Common Core, Creativity, Curriculum, Education Industry, Failure, Joy, Language, Literacy, Literature, Real Education

John Merrow’s Bike Ride: Good News and Bad News

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2023 //
6

John Merrow reports on his ambitious birthday bike ride: he turned 82 and he successfully biked 82 miles! He was so exhilarated that he added another ten miles for good measure!

But, the bad news is that he was scammed in the process.

Read hear to learn about the scam.

And please send a gift to World Central Kitchen to honor John’s ride. WCK has been feeding Ukrainians since the invasion began. I support them.

Categories Courage, Creativity, Discipline, Grit, Joy

A Miraculous Story

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2023 //
42

In our cynical age, we tend not to believe in miracles—inexplicable events that save lives or answer prayers. I don’t believe in miracles, and I don’t believe in ghosts. But there is no other word to describe a story printed in the Boston Globe not long after the famous Boston Marathon.

It’s the story of a woman who lives in Oklahoma City who loves running marathons and had qualified to run in the 2023 Boston Marathon. Rachel Foster and her husband John own an Italian restaurant where she was the head chef. Five months before the Boston Marathon, they decided to take a night off and go for a ride on their electric scooters.

As they were riding, she had some sort of seizure, accelerated, and fell off her scooter. She had 17 broken bones and a catastrophic brain injury. She underwent brain surgery but didn’t wake up. For 10 days, she showed no consciousness.

The doctors told her husband that she had no brain activity, and that if she regained consciousness, she would likely be in a persistent vegetative state. They said there was no hope.

Her husband regretfully agreed to take her off life support the next day.

But then she opened her eyes.

A nurse ran in, and then the doctor, who instructed Rachel to blink twice if she could hear him. She did. He told her to squeeze his hand and move her feet on command. She did. The doctor turned the ventilator off and asked her to breathe on her own. For the first time since the accident, she did.

When a neurosurgeon who had operated on Rachel visited her hospital room a few weeks later, watching as she interacted with the nurses, he was stunned, John said.

“I looked at him and I said, ‘Isn’t this amazing?’ He went to approach her bed and he said, ‘No, this isn’t amazing. This is a miracle, and nothing that I did and nothing that my team did would cause an outcome like this,’” John recalled

Rachel had no memory of the accident. After a month of rehab, she transferred to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta to continue her rehabilitation. She had to learn how to stand, how to walk, how to balance, There, doctors decided that she needed another round of brain surgery “to restructure her skull and alleviate the discomfort.”

The surgery was a success, and as Rachel embarked on a grueling rehabilitation, she set her sights on a seemingly impossible goal — to run the Boston Marathon in April. She had run nine marathons and had qualified for Boston a second time by finishing the 2022 Oklahoma City Marathon the previous spring with a time of 3:17:15.

From the end of January to the end of March, she was in outpatient therapy, and her goal was to run in the Marathon, then only three weeks away. Her husband constantly encouraged her, cheering her on.

In addition, she had a running partner, 66-year-old Tim Altendorf, some three decades her senior. They had met in the local YMCA in spin class. Tim agreed to enter the Boston Marathon and run with her. They had a father-daughter bond. He understood how much it meant to her to run the Marathon.

When she returned to Oklahoma City, she and Altendorf ran together just once, a few weeks before the Marathon. The next day, Rachel suffered a groin injury that forced her to modify her training and bothered her throughout the race. She also continued to struggle with her vision and coordination, and during the Marathon Altendorf would ask how she was feeling….

After such adversity, running the Marathon felt like redemption. Rachel soaked in the cheers along the way, even as the miles took a toll. But her pace quickened as the roar of the crowd grew and she saw John jumping up and down on Boylston Street, shouting so loud he lost his voice. Rachel blew him kisses and said she loved him.

As rain fell, Rachel and Altendorf crossed with a time of 5:44:46.

“We held our hands and lifted both of our hands up in the air,” she said. “No matter what craziness has come at us, here we are. We’re finishing together as friends. It was amazing.”

Rachel said it will take time before she is fully recovered. But after finishing a marathon, she feels no task is too daunting.

“I feel so blessed and thankful,” she said. “I feel invincible. I do believe that it was a miracle. Miraculous things have happened and are happening every day.”

Crossing the finish line at the Boston Marathon!

Categories Boston, Courage, Goodness, Hope, Joy, Love
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