The blog has had a few posts about Vivian Connell (see here and here and here,) who left teaching in North Carolina to go to law school; graduated with honors, then learned she had ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and only a few years to live.

Vivian has returned to teaching and decided that she wanted to make her time count. She started a fund to take a class of 32 children to the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C.

Vivian was trying to raise $20,000. She met her goal and then some. Thanks to all who sent a gift to this wonderful project.

I received the following email from Vivian:

Diane,

We made it and then some!

An angel donor funded the balance of all the basics, and we are receiving a couple of thousand more that we will put toward “treats” – perhaps souvenirs, ice cream and T-shirts?

Moreover, I received an unbelievable honor today: as a result of this project and all of the publicity, a local donor/supporter of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum contacted the director, and she has invited me to be her guest next week at the museum’s events to commemorate the Day of Remembrance. I am just gobsmacked.

I owe you so much-your blog started it all, and every article quoted your kind words.

I can’t wait to welcome you to Raleigh next year for NPE2015, and I plan to make more waves for our causes before then!

Love and respect,

Vivian

I took a fall on April 5 and had the misfortune to land full-force on my left knee. At first the knee surgeon thought I wouldn’t need surgery, and that was reassuring. However, when he saw the MRI, he changed his mind. I had managed to tear not only my ACL but the meniscus ligaments in my knee. The surgeon recommended a total knee replacement. So that’s what I will do. The date for surgery is May 9. Lots of pre-surgical tests before then, and lots of physical therapy to get ready and more after the surgery.

It is not a pleasant prospect to say the least. But this too shall pass.

In the meanwhile, I will stay on top of the news about education and continue to keep the living room open for frank discussion about the state of American education.

The Network for Public Education is going strong.

The corporate reformers seem to be growing more desperate every day, with more stories, editorials, and commercials urgently pushing their failed snake oil cures. The public is becoming aware of the scams intended to privatize their schools and of the billionaires and entrepreneurs eager to monetize public education. Here’s the good news: they are losing. Everything they do fails. We know it. They know it. No matter how much Duncan throws his weight around, no matter how many organizations Gates buys, the word is getting out. We will not hand over our public schools to corporations.

The battle will go on, and I count on you to stand up for our kids, our teachers, our schools, and real education, and to resist the tyranny of high-stakes testing and school closings, wherever you are. I may be home bound with a bum knee, but please stand up and fight wherever you are. We will win for two reasons: one, everything they propose has failed to improve education; two, we are many, and they are few.

In an earlier post, I shared with you the fact that I took a bad fall, landed on my knee, and tore the ACL ligament. The MRI showed the damage was even more extensive than it first seemed. I not only tore my ACL, I managed to take out several other ligaments as well that provide stability. So much for enthusiasm and striving boldly into the challenges of life.

As a result, this is the new schedule: I am going to Louisville this week to accept the Grawemeyer award. I wouldn’t miss it, even if I have to use a walker and a wheelchair.

I am canceling all other speaking engagements for the balance of April and May. No Milwaukee. No Madison. No Towson University. No Honorary degree at Columbia College in Chicago.

I may be facing knee replacement surgery.

This much I promise you. I won’t stop blogging and tweeting unless I’m under anesthesia. I will not stop advocating for commonsense reforms, for respectful treatment of educators, for loving treatment of children, and the joy of learning until they pry my cold, dead fingers from my electronic devices.

A while back, I posted a moving statement by Vivian Connell about her discovery that she has ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and a limited life-span. I called it “Vivian Connell: The Face of a Hero,” recognizing the grace and dignity with which she was facing a dread diagnosis.

She wrote about her plans to do good works in whatever time was left to her, and one of her goals was to take a group of students from North Carolina to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C.

Here is the post in which she explains how everyone can contribute to the fund needed to transport the students on this important adventure.

I made my donation. I hope you will too.

Vivian writes:

The North Carolina Foundation for Public School Children is acting as the fiscal agent for the project entitled Writing Wrongs: Student Voices for Justice. You can read all about the project and donate here. And I’ll be deeply grateful. Moreover, I can honestly say that as I face the daily, increasing difficulty with walking, I am comforted and meaningfully encouraged when I look forward to this trip and this project with these kids. Thank you.

You may recall that when I went to AERA and shared a session with the wonderful, dynamic Helen Gym, she managed to pick her way carefully through the crowd that lined the wall of the room, while I managed to trip over someone’s foot and fell flat on my face. No harm done, the room was carpeted, and I landed gracefully in such a fashion that I was unhurt, indeed bounced up and proceeded to the podium.

Well, it turns out that the fall in Philadelphia was merely practice for what happened two days later. On Saturday morning, I packed the car and drove from Brooklyn to Long Island for what I expected would be a quiet weekend. My dear partner was away for the weekend. I dropped the dog at Doggie Daycare (she is a 60-pound critter and she loves to run with playmates), then proceeded to the abode by the sea. I took the cat inside, then went to the car, thinking I would go for the mail and supplies. But something happened, I don’t know what. I tripped, landed on my left knee and couldn’t get up. I felt a snap inside my leg. There was no carpet, there was stone. At first I thought the pain would go away if I just lay there for a few minutes, but when I tried to get up, I couldn’t stand. So I dragged myself on my back up the steps and into the house, reached up to the phone and called a neighbor. She called emergency services, and within 10 minutes, there was an ambulance, a police car, and assorted other vehicles in the driveway. Literally 15 people were there to help me, and I was grateful for their kind and efficient care. I was taken away by the volunteer fire department ambulance to the local hospital in Greenport, where the doctor did an x-ray and told me I had no broken bones. As soon as he heard what happened, my son took the bus from Brooklyn so that he could take care of me and bring me home. Today, I saw a knee specialist at the Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC, who told me I had torn my ACL, which seems to be a very valuable ligament in the knee. He told me that I did not need surgery but my basketball career was over (sorry, Arne).

The good news is that I am alive and well. I am fortunate to have friends and family who are kind and caring.

I will be in Louisville, Kentucky, next week to accept the Grawemeyer award.

What’s the moral of the story? Be careful. Slow down. Type faster. Walk slower. Watch your step. Try not to multi-task. Live in the moment.

I will try to remember the moral of the story.

As this post demonstrates, when you have dinner with Julian Vasquez Heilig, you dine with a very active and imaginative mind.

There you are thinking of a stiff drink, and he is thinking of the Odyssey! You are blowing off steam about the latest outrage from Washington, and JVH is cogitating.

You are comparing notes on how California and New York are dealing with federal pressure to conform and buckle, and his mighty brain is acting like a filing cabinet.

I am honored that he thinks of me as a mentor. I think of him as one of our bravest and most valuable young scholars. Those of us who hope for a better day for our society, now steeped in a dog-eat-dog culture, place our hopes with Julian and his peers to lead us out of this dark wood.

I earlier posted Vivian Connell’s letter in which she described her reaction when she learned she has ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

Vivian here tells us of her continuing journey and reminds us of her boldness of spirit, her determination to squeeze out of life all she can without self-pity but with courage.

I really liked her opening epigram:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Vivian reminds us that each of us must decide how we will spend “the time that is given us.” None of us knows whether that time will be marked in days, weeks, months, or years.

The choice is ours.

Vivian will soon launch her Kickstarter campaign to raise money to take students to the U.S. Holocaust Museum. When she does, you will hear about it.

In the meanwhile, Vivian, know that our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Miracles happen.