MY STORY offering support to women, children and families in our area. We offer things like limited ultrasounds (up to 14 weeks), pregnancy tests, support and material supplies — prenatal vitamins, maternity and infant clothing, diapers and formula — as well as equipment: car seats, strollers, high chairs, bassinets and many other items. We offer client services from pregnancy until the child is 18 months old. We also partner with other agencies in our community to connect clients with resources that support their overall care. Our heart is to be a safe and welcoming place for those walking through difficult circumstances. We are not here to judge, but to offer a hand up through the love of Jesus Christ, along with compassion, encouragement and faithful support. All of our services are free of charge and completely confidential. I appreciate your time and hope more women in WNC will know that we are here for them if they need us! — Stacy Bishop Executive director Open Arms Hendersonville
Fund abortions before child care Abortions and contraception are what a place must fund to build economic infrastructure, before funding child care, schools or maternity care as Kit Cramer suggests [“Child Care Funding Is Important for Economy,” Jan. 14, Xpress ], as these are economic drags by comparison, and it is child-free talent that we need to attract, who can devote all their talents to economic infrastructure and not young parents who can’t. That’s in addition to attracting Donnie’s bombs like Venezuela, Yemen, Syria, Somalia and Nigeria, none of which fund abortions or have enviable economies like low-fertility Japan, Provincetown and San Francisco. Counties and cities must fund abortions and contraception first and most if they are to build economies or avoid the bombs. Abortion and contraception funding also cause far less microplastics than child care or the Band-Aids suggested by Christine Klein Mauck [“What Can We Do About Microplastics?” Jan. 14, Xpress], like Bezos’ Whole Foods, and far less erosion than those funded by the Soil and Water Conservation District, and so must come first, while other city and county spending, like child care, bag enforcement and stream fencing, await state approval. — Alan Ditmore Leicester X
The quest for a better world needs the classroom BY ED SACCO I’m motivated to respond to the subject of schooling because of the variety of my 29 years teaching in the public schools. My experiences range from third graders to high school students; includes children with reading disabilities and emotional problems; all subjects, including a few years of history in high school — and, ironically, I taught gifted children the last nine years of my teaching career. I’m familiar with charter schools, private schools and various models tried by a business group in California. I also substituted in Black Mountain, Swannanoa and Asheville for a year or so when I moved here after retiring in 1996. It was a good way to get to know the area. I applaud Mountain Xpress’ “I Beg to Differ” column [Jan. 7] with Bill Branyon’s and Carl Mumpower’s opinions on the question: Should public dollars fund private schools? What follows is a simplification of a long, complicated story. My son, a nonreader in our conventional and private schooling systems, eventually got his doctorate. He persisted and continued his education after graduating from a public high school. I learned to teach because of my son, who entered fourth grade struggling in public school. I moved him to a private school that focused on his strengths: visual arts, music and theater. A much better environment, but a financial burden. But, even a private school was not enough. Since the school district failed to meet my son’s needs, I studied the state of California’s laws and sought district funds. I was refused. I appealed to the county, state and political representatives, and even the president of the United States. Politicians offered verbal support but nothing else. I persisted and
ED SACCO was awarded $5,000. The victory, though, was incomplete. To ensure my son had long-term support, I eventually sold my house and moved to another city to enroll him in a public school program suited to his learning style. This was my learning period of working and discovering the need to transform our schools, along with other parents and children. I vouch for the sincerity of both Branyon’s and Mumpower’s opinions, as I have had conversations with them in the past. Again, I applaud the dialogue on a very important issue. But, it’s déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra said around the 1960s. Why are we still discussing this after 50-plus years? Albert Einstein answers this question: “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” Schools will not transform until “our way of life” transforms, evolving spiritual values that include both private and public schools.
Resources for parents, teachers and students Here are resources for parents, teachers, home schoolers and those who are overwhelmed and confused: • The Intellectual Journey of Thomas Berry: Imagining the Earth Community; Heather Eaton, editor: essays on the hidden harmony of things. • Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students
for Life — (and better adults) by Peter Gray. • Unschooled: Raising Curious Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom by Kerry MacDonald. • The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins exposes intense stress, students and teachers cheating, cutthroat admission policies and students driven to suicide.
Our schools are framed and controlled by money and laws made by politicians rather than educators. This is a huge challenge for the Disunited States. It’s easier to build strong children than to repair the wealthy elites, politicians and even well-intentioned adults who support the status quo and authoritarian government that rules by force, not persuasion or dialogue. Our way of life must change before our schools transform. North Carolinian Thomas Berry suggested a “new sacred story” that brings more understanding through modern science and the evolutionary process for ever greater goodness, truth and beauty. He concluded that our crisis is the result of a lack of personal development, especially among people of power and influence. We can see the need today. I am limited by the word count and the ability to express the joy and meaning of lifelong learning that I have been encouraging for younger generations. There are thousands and thousands of people on this planet who are not being heard by those in power today. Have you noticed? News reports simply describing the violence in our world: police shooting people, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) using military force, wars of empire? Presented as if we the people are mere onlookers with no, or little, references to religious and spiritual values like compassion, sharing, caring for others and love, or at least respect for your neighbor. Think hard: What is needed for children, and adults who influence children, that evokes wonder, awe, creativity, a sense of the sacred and the capacity to deal with today’s current crisis? Ed Sacco can be reached at esacco189@gmail.com. X
• The Montessori Method by Maria Montessori, an educational approach that has transformed classrooms worldwide. • YouTube also carries a wealth of ideas about our cultural values. Check Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, Yuval Noah Harari, education, and … well, you can continue your lifelong learning and discover the wisdom of those who devote their lives to the fate of the earth and the sacred universe.
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