I am the bearer of noteworthy New York news!

Borough of Manhattan Community College, where I teach, prides itself on its truly open doors!  Anyone who ever wanted – or wants – to go to college but somehow missed out or messed up?  BMCC can try to help.  Our staff knows about requirements, other schools, languages, libraries, and the vast minutia that the educational system encompasses. What they don’t know, they have plenty of ideas about how to find out.

During recent final exams, one of my best students, a Latino immigrant,  attached a note to his paper.  “Muchas gracias for leading me to the right books and helping me escape from the dreary 3-4 paragraph model essays in the boring textbook.  I sensed that so much more was possible. I have had my own ideas and dreams – in Spanish – for years and at last, I am really reading and writing!”

He will be a fine writer in English one day. Neither he nor any other student should have to wander and struggle for years; literacy, access to books and guidance in reading are what English teachers can easily offer.

Community colleges welcome the unconventional and often untrained student. The opportunity to create using language comfortably is immense! We teachers are the lucky guardians of the legacy of literacy.  

And there is an even greater urgency in this era of budget cuts, curtailed public library services and hours, in a world captivated by inventive visual electronic devices!

THERE IS NO WONDER GREATER THAN A REALLY FINE BOOK!

It is the absolute conviction that THERE IS NOTHING LIKE A BOOK!