Just wanted to let the fine folks out there in cyberland know that I have been invited to speak in NYC at the ARM Conference on Performing Feminist Motherhood during the Mamapalooza Festival on May 16th. For the complete ARM Conference schedule, go here.
Specifically, I will be part of a panel on Motherhood and Social-Cultural Activism, which will include presentations from the editor of Literary Mama, the editor of Mamapalooza's The Mom Egg, and a scholar from Toronto's York University. It's an estrofest of mamativity!
Here's a taste of what I'll be presenting:
Rocking the Public Schools:
How a Community of Mothers Take Back Their Neighborhood School
Education isn't a sexy topic. It isn't as devastating as war, or as immediate as an economic recession or as hotly contested as the presidential candidates.
But it does affect the future of our children.
In Los Angeles, one of the wealthiest states in the nation if not the world, our public schools are ranked near the bottom of the country. As mothers, we will not tolerate it nor will we stand idly by and do nothing, waiting for some shift in district power to fix our broken system.
My essay will tell how motherhood birthed not only our children, but the growth of a renewed sense of community awareness and civic responsibility, and a vision to collectively invest in and revitalize our failing public schools.
In particular, I will show how one team of mothers gathered together with the school's principal to work to bring the neighborhood back to the "low-performing" neighborhood school. This is the story of a growing team of mothers swarming the wound, nurturing and repairing it, demanding and initiating change through extensive outreach, shared ideas, endless fundraising, campus beautification, community building, perception shifting, and by funding an innovative educational approach supported by professional mentoring.
Some view this wave of parent activism as an underground revolution that can be seen bubbling up in schools all across Los Angeles, and perhaps around the country.
As we transform our selves, our families, and the way we parent, so too will our schools transform by the very bodies and energy and spirit of those who inhabit them.
***
How a Community of Mothers Take Back Their Neighborhood School
Education isn't a sexy topic. It isn't as devastating as war, or as immediate as an economic recession or as hotly contested as the presidential candidates.
But it does affect the future of our children.
In Los Angeles, one of the wealthiest states in the nation if not the world, our public schools are ranked near the bottom of the country. As mothers, we will not tolerate it nor will we stand idly by and do nothing, waiting for some shift in district power to fix our broken system.
My essay will tell how motherhood birthed not only our children, but the growth of a renewed sense of community awareness and civic responsibility, and a vision to collectively invest in and revitalize our failing public schools.
In particular, I will show how one team of mothers gathered together with the school's principal to work to bring the neighborhood back to the "low-performing" neighborhood school. This is the story of a growing team of mothers swarming the wound, nurturing and repairing it, demanding and initiating change through extensive outreach, shared ideas, endless fundraising, campus beautification, community building, perception shifting, and by funding an innovative educational approach supported by professional mentoring.
Some view this wave of parent activism as an underground revolution that can be seen bubbling up in schools all across Los Angeles, and perhaps around the country.
As we transform our selves, our families, and the way we parent, so too will our schools transform by the very bodies and energy and spirit of those who inhabit them.
***
I hope those of you who can, will join me! For those who can't, I will raise a toast (oh yes, you can bet cocktails will be involved!) to Moms Who Rock day in and day out everywhere!
3 comments:
I am so proud of you! This is BIG! Take an A!
love.
Congratulations! Oh, I'm thrilled for you, T. You're gonna knock 'em dead.
Golly, I wish I could be there. Have a cocktail for me, would you? And remember every single thing so you can tell us all about it.
In my book, you are the QUEEN of rock, my dear. The awesome center of rockin and writin fusion.
Love your soul.
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