We All Have These Moments...These Traditions...These Rituals...That Fill Our Hearts and Give Us Hope

We are in the 6th year of CWP redesign, and one of our rituals has been a literacy lab for immigrant and refugee background youth. We started with 12, moved to 20, and now average 20 to 30 students a summer. All of the kids come from Bridgeport Public Schools and many are affiliated with the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants. This year, our numbers are lower than they have been in the past but that is likely the result of lower numbers of such families allowed in the country. Even so, we still do our part - what we believe to be the mission of the United States of America.

In our tradition, we host a dialogue day between in-practice teachers and kids attending Ubuntu Academy so that the young people have opportunity to share their stories, to practice their English, to ask questions of teachers in non-threatening ways and to enjoy the beauty of Fairfield University's campus. This year, the teachers and the kids are reading Jerry Craft's graphic novel, New Kid, and we worked through dialogue questions today surrounding the themes of that book: race, newness, America, access to schools of privilege, bullying, feeling an outsider, and parents (ah, those parents). The teachers spread across the campus with the kids and I told them they had 30 minutes.

Wrong. I knew it would happen. They took 60 minutes before they returned. Then, as the teachers returned, they reported how amazing the experience was to listen to youth about their lives and travels to the United States.

We are all stories and those fortunate to share them with others are lucky, indeed.

I came home from a fantastic day at the University to pick up my car (we'll see), weekwhacked the lawn, and then lost, beat, and lost to Abu in Cornhole (phew. The games were intense. We have a week left of game play).

Today is the last day of teachers and then we head into the final stretch. 200 kids, 40 educators, 210 hours of instructional activities over 6 weeks.

This is what I do for a living and I love every second of it.