it’s five o’clock and my students are
outside the gate every five o’clock on a
Tuesday afternoon I would open my gate
up for any student that come to my house
to come for extra classes for English or
for reading and this was one of those
days I had been a teacher for a while
then a teach for Malaysia fellow in the
semi rural town of Comus the Greece and
be like and I’ve been teaching English
to students who came from very
underprivileged backgrounds many of them
came from families that were very
incomplete or broken many of them worked
two jobs during school days so that they
would come back after midnight working
to school completely knackered and I
knew as the English teacher in order for
for them to go to the level of their
peers in the city we would need to work
really really hard and so the only way
they would catch up was if they came
from my house to my house buy extra
classes on a Tuesday afternoon at 5 p.m.
but on this Tuesday I was extremely
exhausted I had been teaching for 8
hours non-stop and I had a staff meeting
in the afternoon and so boy I was so
glad that in the afternoon I told my
students teachers really tired today so
you don’t have to come to my extra class
it’s break class is cancelled and I was
really looking forward to going home to
hit the sack and to just sleep the day
away completely exhausted but just as I
laid my head to the bed
the doorbell rang actually I was living
in a couple of house so it was more like
my gate was being shaken and two
students were outside the gate saying
sir Abel they called me said I don’t
know why I say ball we’re here and I
looked out the window and my heart sank
– my students didn’t get the memo they
had come to the extra English class they
had walked over five kilometres
to my house under the formulation son
and daddy were outside this was five
years ago when I was part of a
pioneering cohort of teach formulation
fellows every morning this would be my
view on a Monday at 4:30 a.m. every week
I would pack my supplies fill my car up
with food with clothes for Monday to
Friday where I would stay in gamez as
their teacher I I come from banda wama
so I’m a PG boy and I would travel for
about three hours every week from my
house become ice starting at 4:30 in the
morning in order to reach just in time
for very banana or the morning assembly
and at the end of this road to commence
I will be greeted by about 1,000
students from a diversity of backgrounds
but who share a similar circumstance
they were living in a slightly more
remote place and many of them came from
underprivileged backgrounds my students
were diverse some of them had so much
potential that the only difference they
had between you and and them as in them
was that they came from a different
place that they were born in a different
place with lack some students came from
very rough and tough backgrounds they
were involved in gangs I can tell you
the names of the gangs in Gomez 0 4 1 8
24 these were the gangs that my students
were involved in and on a typical day
after school I would often see gang
fights happening the Chinese versus the
Indians motorcycle helmets Payton’s and
sticks everyone bashing each other
outside of school and it would be a
typical science in commerce I also had
students who came from really noble
families but with a lot of inadequacies
and these were students who want to make
ends meet to support their families
because they knew that if they didn’t
their families would not make ends meet
I had spent to work two jobs until
midnight every day and what
come to school completely exhausted
because they had to support their
families and still I had students who at
13 years who was so high on glue
sniffing glue that often they would just
stay at home because they were
completely naked these were the students
that I met every day these were the
students that I left as a t4 militia
fellow every day as their teacher my
battle was for the huts and – my battle
was to drag them out of the toilet
literally so that it would stop smoking
and come for the English class my battle
was to wake up students who had been
sleeping for five hours during the
school day because they had been so
difficult to the refuges that the
teachers preferred for them to sleep so
that they would wake up to learn the
difference between ease and our my dad
my battle was for the hearts and minds
of my students I had a student who once
produced an essay like this in fact I
had many students like this and this was
written by – not his real name and
Harvin at this time was 16 years old he
wrote this after learning English for
about five months under my tutelage and
this was a lot of hard work but as you
can see having almost nowhere near where
he should be at the time when I was
teaching happened
my sister was 16 years old as well and
the difference was dark every weekend as
I returned home to banda wama I would
meet Claudia my sister and we would talk
about things like Harry Potter and speak
to each other in perfect English
for Claudia coming to school and going
to university eventually coming to empty
was a given but for having the idea of
entering University was an idea he
laughed about it was an idea that he
could not believe much less see Harvin
is not alone we know that there is an
unseen forgotten generation that we can
very easily forget
we know that it’s so easy to live in a
middle-class bubble
this all does not
and the rest of Malaysia if you didn’t
realize but just to illustrate what
education inequity is I’m gonna get us
to do a little interactive activity if I
could just get maybe the the roll over
here maybe from the first row to the
maybe maybe from the first row to the
fifth row if you could all human me and
stand up rise to your feet yep you would
represent give or take one fifth of this
hall you will represent the total amount
of Malaysians
who would not pass the SPM
qualifications you represent the
militias would never be found in a
lecture hall like this for the
university education because they would
never be able to qualify having not have
their SPM qualifications and if I could
get the rest of you in this column to
join them on their feet if you could
just stand as well the rest of you in
the same column you will represent give
or take 44% of this hall 44% of
Malaysians who do not meet the minimum
requirements of English as measured by
the performance for International
Student Assessment of Pisa are short a
Student Assessment tested globally for
in reading math and science thank you
please take a seat education inequity is
real education inequity happens
year after year generation after
generation so that the people who stood
just now would represent a cycle that
would continue the most sobering thing
about education in equity is studies
tell us their children would have a 60%
likelihood of following in their
footsteps of imitating their trajectory
in life in their education and in their
financial choices and so we talked about
the poverty cycle and how it’s so
similar and so related to this cycle of
medication inequity at each for Malaysia
we believe in being part of the solution
we believe that the problems are great
but the solutions are there and we can
be part of the solutions we know the
problems too well in fact we know it so
well that we are participation
participating in the problems today we
know that over 300 thousand
highly-skilled Malaysians leave the
country every year
for greener pastures because the
circumstances are so bleak today and yet
we now stand at the trajectory of an
important place in our country’s history
we stand at the intersection between
some of our greatest problems education
and equity and some of our greatest
solutions you never before has our
country’s history seen this many number
of graduates we’ve never had this number
of graduates since our parents time we
represent the solutions that our
countries need and yet we know how bleak
it is we know that Malaysia is a kind of
global hub in that we stand at number 52
out of 65 countries globally in the
Peace of 2009 rankings it means that we
are now performing poorer than Thailand
or Kazakhstan and science math and
reading it’s bleak and that’s why we
don’t represent the rest of Malaysia
friends when I was a teacher I I
recognized that there was a
responsibility that came with teaching
in a high need school in the school that
was very challenging and as an English
teacher the responsibility was even
larger because English is the tool by
which you can see the world and being
part of panic or heart of teach from
Malaysia fellows it meant that I was now
participating in a movement of leaders
that to date has over to her and 40
fellows and alumni who’ve dedicated at
least two years of their lives teaching
in high-need communities like the
community I taught in Ingham s so that
the students that I taught would raise
their bars would find their potential
it was a lesson that I learned never to
doubt what a small group of thoughtful
committed citizens can do to change the
world because it is the only thing that
ever has as Margaret Mead writes as an
English teacher I had students who came
from all walks of life and and I learned
that anything is possible
if you’ve got the right room or those
around the right room or those who can
show a different way my students needed
to see that there is a different way to
be a man you don’t have to disrespect
women your mother and sister in order to
be a man you don’t have to pass each
other’s heads with motorcycle helmets
every 10 seconds to be a man there are
many ways in which you can choose better
paths in life and my students often felt
like they only had one of two choices to
be the biggest and baddest gangster in
gamez or to leave the village all
together in order to find greener
pastures I needed to show them a middle
path a way for them to contribute to
their community the way for them to
realize the potential of their own
village and so I learned the lesson of
my students potential and possibilities
I saw how it ba one of my students lit
up with a look completely in shock when
I told him that he had improved by 40
percent in his English test I saw my
students stumbled upon them playing
English games and reading the English
dictionary every teacher’s dream where
before months ago they had not even
known words like green or red I saw my
students improving in terms of the way
they related to each other and starting
to look at each other in the eye where
before they had no confidence to stand
in front of the class and I saw in my
student Erin her confidence speaking up
in early 2013 I was an English teacher
to a class called 4G and the classes
were name of the precious stone so my
class was called 40 and I taught a
student called Erin
my real name and Aaron was one of those
really bright sparks
she was so verbal and outspoken she was
so brave the only thing she didn’t have
was the resources to tap into a
potential further unlike many of us
Aaron grew up in a family that could not
afford extra tuition or extra textbooks
or English tutors and so she had what
she had which wasn’t enough one day I
realized that having Aaron wasn’t coming
to school she had been absent for about
five days and as a class teacher it was
my responsibility to to give her a call
and to find out why and so I picked up
the phone call and I said Harry in
cannot attack escola so that by her ear
in katakana
and over the other line Aaron said chiku
say I’m a loon I found out why she was
embarrassed she was nursing a broken
nose and that broken nose was because
her father had abused her punched her
right in the middle of a face Aaron was
the product of not just an unjust system
she was the product of a broken family
and it made me realize just the great
responsibility I had it was both a
responsibility and a burden it struck
home really hard when I went home over
the weekend and met my sister Claudia
who share the same age as Aaron at the
same time to recognize that there was no
difference between Aaron and Claudia
except that Aaron was there a bad hand
of cuts in life and that was the only
thing that she was at fault for as a
teacher I knew that I had a great
responsibility and and one day when an
opportunity came for me to involve my
students in this competition I knew who
to pick it was a competition that
involved students teaching for a student
improvement project for the school and
all they needed to do for this
competition was to come together as a
group and think about a school
improvement idea and pitch it to a board
of managers in a corporate partner that
pitch formulation was connected with no
big deal right really
it was really difficult as an idea for
my students because English wasn’t just
a second language it was a foreign
language but I knew that Aaron was just
the right student and so I brought her
again got together some of her friends
and we came together to prepare for this
student if improvement project and after
school every day we would spend about 20
minutes just practicing practicing
practicing we would refine her student
improvement idea we will refine the
English presentation skills we would put
together a PowerPoint deck all really
simple things for university graduate
training people right but for Aramis and
a friends this was extremely unnerving
because not only were they going to be
presenting a PowerPoint they were going
to be presenting in English a completely
foreign language to them to no less a
board of managers in a corporate partner
the day came when the competition
arrived and Erin and her friends having
practiced for days and days this should
be fine before the corporate board of
managers and they presented with so much
custo and so much courage that the board
of managers were completely blown away
Erin and her friends were doing
something that many people did not
expect they would do that company kids
would be able to be doing and you know
what at the end of the competition I
read enough friends image champions
the school was completely blown away no
one expected Aaron and a friends to
emerge champions much less speaking
English two bosses from a copper company
but Aaron and her friends did it and the
image champions winning a funding in
order to run this student improvement
project they did it because they had the
potential to begin with but they also
did it because my colleagues and I stood
with them to give them the little that
we have and I take a step back after an
incident like this asking myself
actually what did I do
it wasn’t much it was merely just 20
minutes on a few days of the school I’m
teaching Erin and her friends things
that I already knew things that we often
take for granted right PowerPoint and
English and I think a different another
step back and I think what if 50 people
did the same
what if 50 people decided to give a
little bit of the time and the effort
and experience in order to bless someone
else or what if 200 people decided to do
this imagine the possibilities that
would come if we were to be part of the
solutions because as in the words of
Madrid me never doubt that a small group
of committed committed thoughtful
citizens can change the world indeed
it’s the only thing that ever has and so
I end my presentation with the story of
the five o’clock class I’m completely
exhausted right I look out of the window
and there are my two students who didn’t
get the memo that class was cancelled
and the outside shaking my gate saying
say with you for class
and I grew it inside because I’m
completely exhausted and I’m ashamed to
admit this because this is every
teacher’s dream your students are coming
to your house to learn extra English
this is what they need but I’m
completely exhausted after teaching for
an entire day but because my students
have walked for five kilometres under
Sun I opened the gate to them and they
come into my living room
where
we have a little library and I bring out
the pizza and Jean books for them to
start reading and I tell them teachers
really exhausted today so why don’t you
read to each other be independent
learners right just correct each other
and read and you get better and I’m
going back to my room to take a shot
afternoon that is that okay and
cheerfully they say yes and I go back to
my room I shut the door behind me and I
start laying on my bed ready to take my
afternoon nap
but just as I lay my head to the pillow
I begin to hear the voices of my
students outside in the living room and
then they are reading enthusiastically
their voices rising above the afternoon
heat correcting each other
Peter has a dog gene has a dog and as
they read correcting each other
enthusiastically I start to weep I weep
on the bed because I’m completely
exhausted but I also weep because there
are my students outside reading and
trying so hard and there I am trying to
rest off in the afternoon and it’s so
hard but I also read I also we because
it’s just reading wrongly and someone
needs to go out there and help them and
so I wipe my tears I get off from my bed
I go out of the door and I joined them
reading a bit then Jamie and in many
ways I think a step back and I think
it’s just like all of us and I wonder
what are we sleeping on today what is
preventing us from getting out of the
door to read with the two students
outside in our living room because we
should never doubt that a small group of
committed thoughtful citizens can change
the world thank you
outside the gate every five o’clock on a
Tuesday afternoon I would open my gate
up for any student that come to my house
to come for extra classes for English or
for reading and this was one of those
days I had been a teacher for a while
then a teach for Malaysia fellow in the
semi rural town of Comus the Greece and
be like and I’ve been teaching English
to students who came from very
underprivileged backgrounds many of them
came from families that were very
incomplete or broken many of them worked
two jobs during school days so that they
would come back after midnight working
to school completely knackered and I
knew as the English teacher in order for
for them to go to the level of their
peers in the city we would need to work
really really hard and so the only way
they would catch up was if they came
from my house to my house buy extra
classes on a Tuesday afternoon at 5 p.m.
but on this Tuesday I was extremely
exhausted I had been teaching for 8
hours non-stop and I had a staff meeting
in the afternoon and so boy I was so
glad that in the afternoon I told my
students teachers really tired today so
you don’t have to come to my extra class
it’s break class is cancelled and I was
really looking forward to going home to
hit the sack and to just sleep the day
away completely exhausted but just as I
laid my head to the bed
the doorbell rang actually I was living
in a couple of house so it was more like
my gate was being shaken and two
students were outside the gate saying
sir Abel they called me said I don’t
know why I say ball we’re here and I
looked out the window and my heart sank
– my students didn’t get the memo they
had come to the extra English class they
had walked over five kilometres
to my house under the formulation son
and daddy were outside this was five
years ago when I was part of a
pioneering cohort of teach formulation
fellows every morning this would be my
view on a Monday at 4:30 a.m. every week
I would pack my supplies fill my car up
with food with clothes for Monday to
Friday where I would stay in gamez as
their teacher I I come from banda wama
so I’m a PG boy and I would travel for
about three hours every week from my
house become ice starting at 4:30 in the
morning in order to reach just in time
for very banana or the morning assembly
and at the end of this road to commence
I will be greeted by about 1,000
students from a diversity of backgrounds
but who share a similar circumstance
they were living in a slightly more
remote place and many of them came from
underprivileged backgrounds my students
were diverse some of them had so much
potential that the only difference they
had between you and and them as in them
was that they came from a different
place that they were born in a different
place with lack some students came from
very rough and tough backgrounds they
were involved in gangs I can tell you
the names of the gangs in Gomez 0 4 1 8
24 these were the gangs that my students
were involved in and on a typical day
after school I would often see gang
fights happening the Chinese versus the
Indians motorcycle helmets Payton’s and
sticks everyone bashing each other
outside of school and it would be a
typical science in commerce I also had
students who came from really noble
families but with a lot of inadequacies
and these were students who want to make
ends meet to support their families
because they knew that if they didn’t
their families would not make ends meet
I had spent to work two jobs until
midnight every day and what
come to school completely exhausted
because they had to support their
families and still I had students who at
13 years who was so high on glue
sniffing glue that often they would just
stay at home because they were
completely naked these were the students
that I met every day these were the
students that I left as a t4 militia
fellow every day as their teacher my
battle was for the huts and – my battle
was to drag them out of the toilet
literally so that it would stop smoking
and come for the English class my battle
was to wake up students who had been
sleeping for five hours during the
school day because they had been so
difficult to the refuges that the
teachers preferred for them to sleep so
that they would wake up to learn the
difference between ease and our my dad
my battle was for the hearts and minds
of my students I had a student who once
produced an essay like this in fact I
had many students like this and this was
written by – not his real name and
Harvin at this time was 16 years old he
wrote this after learning English for
about five months under my tutelage and
this was a lot of hard work but as you
can see having almost nowhere near where
he should be at the time when I was
teaching happened
my sister was 16 years old as well and
the difference was dark every weekend as
I returned home to banda wama I would
meet Claudia my sister and we would talk
about things like Harry Potter and speak
to each other in perfect English
for Claudia coming to school and going
to university eventually coming to empty
was a given but for having the idea of
entering University was an idea he
laughed about it was an idea that he
could not believe much less see Harvin
is not alone we know that there is an
unseen forgotten generation that we can
very easily forget
we know that it’s so easy to live in a
middle-class bubble
this all does not
and the rest of Malaysia if you didn’t
realize but just to illustrate what
education inequity is I’m gonna get us
to do a little interactive activity if I
could just get maybe the the roll over
here maybe from the first row to the
maybe maybe from the first row to the
fifth row if you could all human me and
stand up rise to your feet yep you would
represent give or take one fifth of this
hall you will represent the total amount
of Malaysians
who would not pass the SPM
qualifications you represent the
militias would never be found in a
lecture hall like this for the
university education because they would
never be able to qualify having not have
their SPM qualifications and if I could
get the rest of you in this column to
join them on their feet if you could
just stand as well the rest of you in
the same column you will represent give
or take 44% of this hall 44% of
Malaysians who do not meet the minimum
requirements of English as measured by
the performance for International
Student Assessment of Pisa are short a
Student Assessment tested globally for
in reading math and science thank you
please take a seat education inequity is
real education inequity happens
year after year generation after
generation so that the people who stood
just now would represent a cycle that
would continue the most sobering thing
about education in equity is studies
tell us their children would have a 60%
likelihood of following in their
footsteps of imitating their trajectory
in life in their education and in their
financial choices and so we talked about
the poverty cycle and how it’s so
similar and so related to this cycle of
medication inequity at each for Malaysia
we believe in being part of the solution
we believe that the problems are great
but the solutions are there and we can
be part of the solutions we know the
problems too well in fact we know it so
well that we are participation
participating in the problems today we
know that over 300 thousand
highly-skilled Malaysians leave the
country every year
for greener pastures because the
circumstances are so bleak today and yet
we now stand at the trajectory of an
important place in our country’s history
we stand at the intersection between
some of our greatest problems education
and equity and some of our greatest
solutions you never before has our
country’s history seen this many number
of graduates we’ve never had this number
of graduates since our parents time we
represent the solutions that our
countries need and yet we know how bleak
it is we know that Malaysia is a kind of
global hub in that we stand at number 52
out of 65 countries globally in the
Peace of 2009 rankings it means that we
are now performing poorer than Thailand
or Kazakhstan and science math and
reading it’s bleak and that’s why we
don’t represent the rest of Malaysia
friends when I was a teacher I I
recognized that there was a
responsibility that came with teaching
in a high need school in the school that
was very challenging and as an English
teacher the responsibility was even
larger because English is the tool by
which you can see the world and being
part of panic or heart of teach from
Malaysia fellows it meant that I was now
participating in a movement of leaders
that to date has over to her and 40
fellows and alumni who’ve dedicated at
least two years of their lives teaching
in high-need communities like the
community I taught in Ingham s so that
the students that I taught would raise
their bars would find their potential
it was a lesson that I learned never to
doubt what a small group of thoughtful
committed citizens can do to change the
world because it is the only thing that
ever has as Margaret Mead writes as an
English teacher I had students who came
from all walks of life and and I learned
that anything is possible
if you’ve got the right room or those
around the right room or those who can
show a different way my students needed
to see that there is a different way to
be a man you don’t have to disrespect
women your mother and sister in order to
be a man you don’t have to pass each
other’s heads with motorcycle helmets
every 10 seconds to be a man there are
many ways in which you can choose better
paths in life and my students often felt
like they only had one of two choices to
be the biggest and baddest gangster in
gamez or to leave the village all
together in order to find greener
pastures I needed to show them a middle
path a way for them to contribute to
their community the way for them to
realize the potential of their own
village and so I learned the lesson of
my students potential and possibilities
I saw how it ba one of my students lit
up with a look completely in shock when
I told him that he had improved by 40
percent in his English test I saw my
students stumbled upon them playing
English games and reading the English
dictionary every teacher’s dream where
before months ago they had not even
known words like green or red I saw my
students improving in terms of the way
they related to each other and starting
to look at each other in the eye where
before they had no confidence to stand
in front of the class and I saw in my
student Erin her confidence speaking up
in early 2013 I was an English teacher
to a class called 4G and the classes
were name of the precious stone so my
class was called 40 and I taught a
student called Erin
my real name and Aaron was one of those
really bright sparks
she was so verbal and outspoken she was
so brave the only thing she didn’t have
was the resources to tap into a
potential further unlike many of us
Aaron grew up in a family that could not
afford extra tuition or extra textbooks
or English tutors and so she had what
she had which wasn’t enough one day I
realized that having Aaron wasn’t coming
to school she had been absent for about
five days and as a class teacher it was
my responsibility to to give her a call
and to find out why and so I picked up
the phone call and I said Harry in
cannot attack escola so that by her ear
in katakana
and over the other line Aaron said chiku
say I’m a loon I found out why she was
embarrassed she was nursing a broken
nose and that broken nose was because
her father had abused her punched her
right in the middle of a face Aaron was
the product of not just an unjust system
she was the product of a broken family
and it made me realize just the great
responsibility I had it was both a
responsibility and a burden it struck
home really hard when I went home over
the weekend and met my sister Claudia
who share the same age as Aaron at the
same time to recognize that there was no
difference between Aaron and Claudia
except that Aaron was there a bad hand
of cuts in life and that was the only
thing that she was at fault for as a
teacher I knew that I had a great
responsibility and and one day when an
opportunity came for me to involve my
students in this competition I knew who
to pick it was a competition that
involved students teaching for a student
improvement project for the school and
all they needed to do for this
competition was to come together as a
group and think about a school
improvement idea and pitch it to a board
of managers in a corporate partner that
pitch formulation was connected with no
big deal right really
it was really difficult as an idea for
my students because English wasn’t just
a second language it was a foreign
language but I knew that Aaron was just
the right student and so I brought her
again got together some of her friends
and we came together to prepare for this
student if improvement project and after
school every day we would spend about 20
minutes just practicing practicing
practicing we would refine her student
improvement idea we will refine the
English presentation skills we would put
together a PowerPoint deck all really
simple things for university graduate
training people right but for Aramis and
a friends this was extremely unnerving
because not only were they going to be
presenting a PowerPoint they were going
to be presenting in English a completely
foreign language to them to no less a
board of managers in a corporate partner
the day came when the competition
arrived and Erin and her friends having
practiced for days and days this should
be fine before the corporate board of
managers and they presented with so much
custo and so much courage that the board
of managers were completely blown away
Erin and her friends were doing
something that many people did not
expect they would do that company kids
would be able to be doing and you know
what at the end of the competition I
read enough friends image champions
the school was completely blown away no
one expected Aaron and a friends to
emerge champions much less speaking
English two bosses from a copper company
but Aaron and her friends did it and the
image champions winning a funding in
order to run this student improvement
project they did it because they had the
potential to begin with but they also
did it because my colleagues and I stood
with them to give them the little that
we have and I take a step back after an
incident like this asking myself
actually what did I do
it wasn’t much it was merely just 20
minutes on a few days of the school I’m
teaching Erin and her friends things
that I already knew things that we often
take for granted right PowerPoint and
English and I think a different another
step back and I think what if 50 people
did the same
what if 50 people decided to give a
little bit of the time and the effort
and experience in order to bless someone
else or what if 200 people decided to do
this imagine the possibilities that
would come if we were to be part of the
solutions because as in the words of
Madrid me never doubt that a small group
of committed committed thoughtful
citizens can change the world indeed
it’s the only thing that ever has and so
I end my presentation with the story of
the five o’clock class I’m completely
exhausted right I look out of the window
and there are my two students who didn’t
get the memo that class was cancelled
and the outside shaking my gate saying
say with you for class
and I grew it inside because I’m
completely exhausted and I’m ashamed to
admit this because this is every
teacher’s dream your students are coming
to your house to learn extra English
this is what they need but I’m
completely exhausted after teaching for
an entire day but because my students
have walked for five kilometres under
Sun I opened the gate to them and they
come into my living room
where
we have a little library and I bring out
the pizza and Jean books for them to
start reading and I tell them teachers
really exhausted today so why don’t you
read to each other be independent
learners right just correct each other
and read and you get better and I’m
going back to my room to take a shot
afternoon that is that okay and
cheerfully they say yes and I go back to
my room I shut the door behind me and I
start laying on my bed ready to take my
afternoon nap
but just as I lay my head to the pillow
I begin to hear the voices of my
students outside in the living room and
then they are reading enthusiastically
their voices rising above the afternoon
heat correcting each other
Peter has a dog gene has a dog and as
they read correcting each other
enthusiastically I start to weep I weep
on the bed because I’m completely
exhausted but I also weep because there
are my students outside reading and
trying so hard and there I am trying to
rest off in the afternoon and it’s so
hard but I also read I also we because
it’s just reading wrongly and someone
needs to go out there and help them and
so I wipe my tears I get off from my bed
I go out of the door and I joined them
reading a bit then Jamie and in many
ways I think a step back and I think
it’s just like all of us and I wonder
what are we sleeping on today what is
preventing us from getting out of the
door to read with the two students
outside in our living room because we
should never doubt that a small group of
committed thoughtful citizens can change
the world thank you
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