My initial stab at a literacy narrative about how I learned to read (and how my brother didn’t) doesn’t yet seem to be leading anywhere, that is, to some larger important teaching principles, which I believe is the purpose of this assignment.

Conversations with my mom seem to be major subjects of my literacy memories. She’s the person who taught me to read and write when I was four and showed me through her philosophy of life through her words and deeds—and her stories.

Since childhood, I have always loved listening to people’s stories (even the seemingly ordinary ones), and everything I write seems to lead back to stories. There’s the story of how in the early fifties, my mom (Alice) and a neighbor mom (Billie) lobbied the school district for a preschool—and then volunteered to set it up and operate it. The school district gave them a space in a semi-abandoned old high school, and the two women provided the curriculum and the labor in the form of other volunteer mothers. I don’t even know if they had a budget. Certainly they weren’t paid. The interesting thing is that both Mom and Billie were from small farming families in Washington State, and neither was college-educated. They were armed only with a few child psychology extension classes, their books, and an idea.

Another story is how Mom and Billie would sit in on board school meetings and heckle the members who were willing to fund sports but not kindergarten. Ultimately they sent their four-year-old daughters as emissaries from door-to-door with fliers (while they sat in the car watching us) to get the district to vote for kindergarten. There were probably other district parents out there doing the same thing. Well, it worked. The won!

Then there’s the story of how my parents and a few others stood up to the majority of parents and school administrators who wanted to fire a high school teacher for teaching about communism. Afterwards one outspoken parent at the meeting (who was the only identifiable Jewish intellectual in the district) was beat up in the school parking lot before my parents and others came to his aid. These are just some abbreviated stories connected with schools.

Is any of this relative to a literacy autobiography? Maybe some element of it can be expanded into something that works. Right now I’d welcome comments and ideas for possible directions.

By the way, I’m thoroughly enjoying reading everyone’s stories (i.e., blogs). They’re rich. . . .