Required Reading

I am reading Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America. Paul Tough, a journalist who specializes in reporting on education, spent 5 years researching and shadowing Canada, who has done simply amazing things for the children of central Harlem. He calls his program The Harlem Children's Zone. It's a new approach to social services, bold and sweeping and...working. Sometimes it's a hard read--there is no sugar coating here--but really, read this one.

Or, if you'd prefer a quick overview, go to This American Life, and click on "Full Episode" under "Going Big." The feature on Canada is the first portion of the program. Better yet, go straight to The Harlem Children's Zone website.

A quick story: I had been thinking about how to bring Kindermusik to the underserved of Dayton, OH. Like most rust belt cities, Dayton has a large inner city population that's living below the poverty line. People who've probably never heard of early childhood music education or its benefits, and even if they had, they couldn't afford it. I was brainstorming possible grant sources while I was doing the dishes on Sunday, envisioning teen parents and their new babies learning songs and rhymes and strategies and TOOLS for their daunting new parenting journey, and the radio show I was half-listening to turned to the story linked above. It was about Geoffrey Canada, who, among other innovations, decided that he had to reach children right at birth or even before, or it was too late. He began Baby College, the foundation of The Harlem Children's Zone, where parents come to...learn songs and rhymes and strategies and TOOLS for their daunting new parenting journey.

Well, I started to weep. Sometimes the universe makes your path really obvious, and this felt like one of those moments. So I've been making phone calls and surfing Dayton social service websites. So far, dead ends. It's discouraging, but stay tuned. I'm not done yet.