It’s all very personal. And maybe that is what it should be. In 1980, thirty one years ago, the New York City Writing Project changed my teaching. After the summer Institute, I walked back into my classroom with a set of understandings about the teaching of writing and a myriad of ways to approach and enact those ideas. That joining of the practical how-to with the reasons why became the ground from which I would shape my teaching practice, an articulated foundation I could build from.  

So I am just one person and that is small in the scheme of things. But the NWP offered continuing opportunities to learn and to reach out to other teachers locally and nationally in ways that my own Department of Education did not. I have over all of these years continued to work with the Writing Project as a community one chooses to be part of because its forums are not limited by a semester or sequential course structure and because it is practicing teachers who are teaching and supporting other teachers. We are a chain that can and does make a difference.

Education is in trouble. So out government tries this or that – No Child Left Behind, Goals 2000. And education remains in trouble. Yet here is an organization with a proven track record that has impacted teachers’ practice and children’s learning.

I strongly urge our government to think again about what supports our commitment to a substantial education for all children.  

Elaine Avidon

New Your City Writing Project

Faculty (retired) Department of Early Childhood and Childhood Education, Lehman College