I spent 28.43 years in a large urban school district. During that time I worked with every age of student from 3-21, students with every disability (deaf, hard-of-hearing, autistic, deaf-blind, emotionally disturbed children, cognitive delays) as well as students with no disability other than a simple articulation problem. I was and still am a speech […]
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“Local food is primary care.” –New England Farmer’s Union Photo by Dominica Cipriani Growing up, canning is what we did in the summer. Living on farms and in small Midwestern towns, boredom never dogged us like it does the urban kids. Pulling weeds, watering gardens, and stocking up for the winter captured the days of […]
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“Food is simply sunlight in cold storage.” – John Harvey Kellogg As my husband brings in another wire basket full of potatoes to can, my heart sings a song of thanksgiving. Being able to safely preserve the harvest from the garden is not to be taken lightly. As the motto on my apron reads: “I […]
Border Crisis, Southside Chicago Crisis, Five Points Crisis By Cleo Lamps The United States is no stranger to crisis. On our southern Texas border, tens of thousands of children are crossing into this country without documentation in the hopes of being reunited with relatives or to start a new life. These children endured brutal conditions […]
Recent Books by Cleo Lampos A Mother’s Song “I love you, Ava Rose,” she whispered. “I love you enough to give you life.” 1890 All Irish immigrant Deirdre O’Sullivan has ever wanted is a home and a family. But her dreams didn’t include living in a cramped tenement in Five Points, New York, with the […]
Bookmobiles, Literacy, and Hope By Cleo Lampos Looking around the Oak Lawn Public Library last Saturday, the wealth of books, music, and videos on shelves filled me with awe at the availability we have for literacy. The rows of computers to reach beyond the walls of the building added to the amazement. A library is […]
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Should I steal when I’m hungry? The boys in my class for behavior disordered students always had the same question. Each year. “What do you do when you don’t have nothing to eat at home?” Usually, this led to a discussion on why it is all right to steal from the local 7-Eleven because the […]
“The more basic the color, the more inward, the more pure.” – Piet Mondrian As a first year teacher, the goal for my wardrobe was to be “minimalistic.” The term had been batted around by art students and the concept appealed to me. The Minimalists include artists like Piet Mondrian who use geometric shapes in […]
BETTER ME THAN DEAD By Linda Rondeau Dodging traffic and sniffing dogs, I continued the daily grind going house to house with a not so happy spirit. I was hired by a local school district to conduct its yearly census. It was not a job that I relished, but it was some income that could […]
The Sound of a Train Whistle By Cleo Lampos For five years, Bertha taught school in Birmingham,England. She wrote lesson plans, dictated sentences, encouraged written expression, calculated math problems and cared for the children in her class. Each student gained her attention and concern. As a Quaker, she respected the rights of the individuals in […]