mayacole's Podcast

A reading program that embodies the ethos of our educational building blocks in Madison Metropolitan School District is on President Bush's chopping block for fiscal year (FY)2009 and they need your help.

This action will take less than five minutes of your time.  Please let your members of Congress know you care about providing literacy for all children and ask them to sign the RIF Dear Colleague letter.

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The program is a national gem -  Reading is Fundamental or RIF -  provides 4.5 million children with 16 million new, free books each year all the while supporting parents and guardians to read to their kids as well as provide on-line support for literacy activites.

Here's a few FACTS:

RIF is the oldest (40 years) and largest children's and family nonprofit literacy organization in the United States.

RIF is one of the few internet sites for children and families that supports literacy and is easily accessible in Spanish.

RIF has been a part of own schools in Madison in the past few years.  Schools that have benefited from RIF include Hawthorne Elementary, Leopold Elementary, Lindbergh Elementary and Lowell Elementary.  They are part of the 360+ sites which have distributed over 300,000 books to close to 80,000 kids in Wisconsin alone!

RIF programs combine three essential elements to foster children's literacy, especially for those underserved children from birth to age 8: reading motivation, family and community involvement, and the excitement of choosing free books to keep.

You can help save RIF by contacting your congressional representative and your Senators.  All three representatives for the 2nd Congressional District (Madison) have yet to sign on to save RIF.

Education Policy blogger and author, Stuart Nachbar wrote a wonderful, brief post on the reasons to keep RIF funded.  He says, "...in 2006, the last year that federal data is available, RIF distributed books to nearly 4.5 million children—using less federal money than the year before.

That’s hardly an example of a failing program; in fact, one would have to wonder what RIF could have accomplished with an extra million or two."

The International Reading Association, a nonprofit professional organization dedicated to promoting high levels of literacy for all since 1954 has a post about the history of RIF and its cut from the proposed Federal Budget.

Please ask your representatives in Congress to appropriate $26 million to fund RIF’s book distribution program for some 4.6 million underserved children and families in fiscal year 2009. The funding is critical to support our reading motivational programs at nearly 20,000 locations nationwide.

Don't forget to spread the word!

Mindful musings

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This past week, my twin boys and I were playing a mnemonic game we devised when they were in kindergarten to remember days of the week.

The verbal jousting started as a whim when I had to come up with ideas for activities for three boys under 8-years old.  One thing we could always count on was to go get waffles on Wednesdays.

Over spring break we celebrated our fictional event titled, Waffle Tour 2004, in which we traveled to a different destination in search of waffles for the day.  This led to the creation of a zine to share with friends, teachers and family in the weeks long after break had ended. 

By the end of the tour, we had gone all over Madison and declared Indie Coffee on Regent Street the winner of Waffle Tour 2004.  Indie Coffee has since produced even more types of waffles than the original three of buttermilk, chocolate and multigrain.  For the boys and I, Wednesday will always be known as Waffle Wednesday.

Musing on the process my boys used to learn the days of the week made me think of how important it is to share our memories and stories.  In fact, mnemonic defined as, "relating to the power of memory," originated from the 18th century Latin mnÄ“mÅ?n, or "mindful."

Storytelling, podcasting and the world wide web are different attempts by all of us to share stories and participate in the conversation.  As the world gets more complicated and inundated with information, it seems logical to take a break.

I will be posting these musings once a month.  Enjoy the first installment:

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Begin the story in six words:

Legend has it that Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words. His response? “For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Then the internet came along and a group of independent media purveyors created SMITH magazine, an online production that specializes in story projects instead of the home&garden or lifestyle sections.

SMITH announced a contest for submissions to answer the call of the six-word memoir and thousands answered.  National Public Radio covered the  Six-Word Memoirs  and I would highly suggest viewing the slide show.  You can also take a listen to the Talk of the Nation from NPR on the new book Not Quite What I Was Planning, a collection of six-word memoirs by famous and not-so-famous writers.

Smith magazine.

This web magazine has been celebrating the joy of storytelling since 2006.  The editors at Smith state it best, "SMITH is a home for storytelling of all forms and kinds, with a focus on personal narrative. We believe everyone has a story, and everyone should have a place to tell it."

I hope these six-word memoirs give you the needed break you need today.