Yesterday on Facebook, I read Lopez Lomong's call to let him know what chapter of his book,
Running For My Life, touched readers the most. My writing today addresses this call. It was most definitely Chapter 8,
"Writing for My Life." It has been my intent this last year to spread this book to all the communities I interact with and to add what I've already written about this inspirational human being in
2012 and
2008 .
Chapter 8 resonated with me so much that I immediately introduced the writing to the teachers enrolled at the
Connecticut Writing Project's Invitational Summer Institute - a four-week workshop encouraging teachers to be writers, to think critically about writing instruction, and to develop a workshop to support the teaching of writing to others. Under the
National Writing Project model, I stand by the motto that
teachers teaching teachers is the best professional development. For one afternoon of that summer session, however, Lopez Lomong was our teacher.
Since 1994, I've worked in school settings as an educator and researcher. I lived in Kentucky under the era of portfolio assessment and my students were active composers who reflected, wrote narrations, created editorials, imagined short stories, and conducted research. At the time, too, I volunteered with the
Kentucky Refugee Ministries and worked with several relocated young men from Sudan, mentoring them and helping their studies at a community college. This led to
my research at Syracuse University with relocated refugee youth and their writing in and out of school. I know if I was still teaching in Kentucky
Running For My Life would be placed within my junior curriculum.
In 2008, when Lopez carried the American flag at the Beijing Olympics and I returned to Syracuse to earn my doctorate, I made my mother and sister drive with me to Tully, New York, to attend an event to help his family raise funds in celebration of the achievement (and to help them travel to China to be with him). We bought t-shirts and wore them with pride. Four years later, I once again celebrated the accomplishments of this incredible human being. I finished my doctorate and he represented the U.S. in his second Olympics - this time in London.
I've always been more
pathetic than
athletic, although I've kept my hobby of running 5 and 10k's and I do what I can to keep myself buying new running shoes. I'm slow, but a jogging life has helped me to pace myself mentally and not to live a cerebral life alone. My personal and academic life surrounds itself with words. Teaching writing has been a passion, so when I came to Chapter 8 in Lopez Lomong's memoir I was overjoyed. Here were ten pages that united many parts of my world: supporting relocated refugee families, teaching writing to diverse student populations, and having a strong faith in hard work. Chapter Eight is proof of writing's ability to empower individuals.
The most criminal thing we do in K-12 schools is limit the amount of writing young people do and the number of genres expected of them as agents of their own lives. In many urban schools writing is not emphasized at all because teachers are under the gun of
No Child Left Behind, and this requires more attention on state assessments than good instruction. The result is much more reading than writing. I sent Lopez Lomong's chapter to
Dr. Alfred Tatum so he could share the journey during a writing institute he leads for young male writers in Chicago. It is a such a powerful testimony, so much so that I also wrote to
Fugees Academy in Georgia to recommend
Running For My Life to their reading curriculum.
I've shared Chapter 8 with a lot of the relocated refugee youth I work with and this has encouraged them to go to their school librarians to request their schools purchase a copy. One young man from Somalia discussed with me over the holiday, "That book was exactly what I needed." As an athlete, himself, Lomong's story offered him hope. He is currently applying to many colleges including my alma mater, Syracuse University.
The book is historical, gives voice to one refugee experience, and offers global knowledge to a population that is sometimes blind to the intricate network of the 21st century. Chapter 8, however, is full of truth that every educator who works with young people should to read.
