Growing Up in Santa Cruz, November 2020, Behind the Teacher’s Desk, “Children are Parched for In-School Learning,” by Lisa Catterall.
I’ve learned that terror doesn’t happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren’t being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death. – Greg Mortensen, 2009
My feet were dry and dusty. The heat was almost unbearable, and the smell of untreated sewage rolled along the dirt parking lot in clouds. The wall around the school in West Africa was the same dun brown as the dried out earth around it, with sharp metal spikes on top and a chain link door. The guard in full, old-fashioned livery greeted me with a giant smile and ushered me into the courtyard. Read more