… in sharing stories, we have the potential for forging new relationships, including local, classroom “cultures” in which individuals are interconnected and new “we’s” formed. – Dyson, A. H., & Genishi, C. (1994). The need for story: Cultural diversity in classroom and community. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. When Paul and I moved from our…
This week I started writing my daily blog posts with the premise that there is a lot of work to go around in developing robust, active, engaging communities where people really stick to each other. I sat down and quickly identified two dozen things people could be doing to build and sustain communities. (The full…
The worst injury is feeling you don’t belong so much to you – – Claudia Rankine, Citizen, An American Lyric Several times this week, I heard friends and colleagues say that I looked calm and content. One added: “You seem really in the moment.” Given that I am getting through a bout of bronchitis, I…
Very few establishments welcomed openly gay people in the 1950s and 1960s. Those that did were often bars, although bar owners and managers were rarely gay. At the time, the Stonewall Inn was owned by the Mafia. It catered to an assortment of patrons and was known to be popular among the poorest and most marginalized people…
A noiseless patient spider, I marked where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. – Walt Whitman This poem gives me pause. When did I learn to stop or slow my casting…
Lover alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. – >William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116 Communities share an identity of sorts. This identity is affected by intentions, beliefs, resources, preferences, and risks. Community identity is also affected by its stickiness, by its adhesion. We sometimes call…
Creating Community for Everyone 