PLA Blog

Others have already given great overviews of the opening session with John Wood, so I won’t go into that.  I did want to share some of my personal gleanings that I plan to share with my library.  Much of what he says can translate into how we can/could/should ? serve the poor in our local neighborhoods.  I’m from Columbus, Ohio, but I’m sure many of you deal with similar situations.

Points I gleaned: 

• He strives to have “the heart of Mother Theresa and the scaleability of Starbucks” - great tagline!
• Education is a hand up, not a hand out.
• Involve local people, especially parents, to increase the likelyhood that your work will continue after you’ve moved on. You can only help people who want to help themselves. Have you read Bridges Out of Poverty yet?
• Literacy is a long-arc proposition
• We need to find a way to get beyond the “they should do something about that” mentality.
• Have an intense focus on results - GSD - Get . . . you know . . . Stuff Done - what gets measured gets done
• Dream big - go big or go back home

Oh, and did I mention how great a job he does at telling the story? The story of mothers walking down a 2 mile mountain to carry 110 bags of concrete on their backs. Stories of children mashing the “stage” when he opened the boxes of books. Stories of children who are helping to write some of the very first pictures book (ever!) in their local language.

Leaves me thinking “Daddy, will you help me buy a yak?” But seriously, I think our yak is our service, and with nearly 73% of Cols City School children on free or reduced lunch, we have our own huge gulf to cross (and sometimes our own rickety bridges). He’s got some great BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals).

And what about the Big Hairy Audacious Questions? Here are mine:

• What can we do to really get our local parents or teachers or community leaders involved in leading Ready to Read workshops?
• What barriers do we still have that keep us from GSDing, and how do we break them down?
• And, because it’s been a long day and I didn’t really get much dinner, when is my delivery guy going to arrive with my Mostaccioli?