Trophic Cascades. A beautiful story.

1. Trophic cascades are powerful indirect interactions that can control entire ecosystems. Trophic cascadesoccur when predators limit the density and/or behavior of their prey and thereby enhance survival of the next lower trophic level.
   
   

I loved this video.  Talk about pure storytelling.

The Business Manager: How Do You Manage The Manager?

I am married to my business manager.  Now, in saying this I do not mean that my business manager and I work together so often, and are in each other's lives so deeply, that my husband says I might as well be married to her or him.  No.  My husband is my business Manager.  I often refer to him as The David.

Here we are in our younger, cooler days

How did he become my manager?   Well, thirteen years ago my husband gave up his job as a social worker in the Duke University Hospitals System, and I gave up my job as the full time homemaker and primary caregiver of our two children.

He came home, and I went back on the road.  Eight months after that, he took up the post of business manager.  I will spare you the bumps and bruises of that transition..it would make a good story, though.

Fast forward to a year after he took up the job.  We turned into a C Corp called DLW Storyteller Inc.
It exists separately from us, and has its own life, which is weird.  On March 1, 2015, we will have been a company for twelve years.

Over the last decade, we had to work to figure out what each of us is responsible for in the business.  We've gotten help from Merle Davis over the years.  I understand Paula Lepp, does her bit, Jim May's daughter was in it up to her ears when I first started in this business, Diane Ferlatte's husband picks up the slack, and Ed Stivender's sister manages his work.

Diane Ferlatte

I can't speak to how any of them manage their managers, but I can tell you how The David and I roll.  There are some hard and fast rules we follow when it comes to who does what.  For instance:

1)  I am not allowed to book anything.  I can't even pretend to promise.

2)  I do not handle travel plans.  I can suggest, but I don't make the arrangements.

3)  I do not meet with the lawyers or accountants by myself.  Ever.

4)  I don't quote prices for anything.  Ever.


One might be tempted to ask why there are such strict rules about what the artist isn't allowed to do.  Simple, when control freaks work together, they do not do a good job controlling the same things.

When The David became my manager, I'd already been in this business for fourteen years.  I was used to doing everything a very specific way.  David doesn't think, behave, organize or consider things the same way I do.  Our first year was one fight after another until I finally let him manage the business part of the business.  This was a very hard thing to do.

Saw a bunch of these pithy sayings about letting go.  Chose one at random.  They all apply.

There were many up sides to giving up control of the day to day operations.  I no longer have to worry about lots of time consuming details.

The David:


1) Takes care of targeting, distributing, and managing all of the PR

2)  Books all of the shows and fields all of the phone calls from clients

3)  Works out fees for block booking and sends out the contracts

4)  Responds to the emails

5)  Mails out the education packets

6)  Deals with people who think they want a storyteller when what they need is a magician or other type of performer

7) Consults with people who are putting festivals together for the first time, or who are new to the world of PTA cultural arts representation

8) Works with our accountant

9)  Arranges studio time for recordings

10) Cuts checks for everyone

11)  Manages accounts for the business

12) Does the taxes

13)  Works out where I'm going to be in the world and when

14)  Organizes the number and type of charitable events we do every year

15)  Makes us look good

16) Tracks deadlines for conference submissions, and proposals

Heavens, you might ask, if he is doing all of that, what on earth are you doing?

Me?  I get to be an artist.

1)  I write the PR copy, in fact, I usually write the base for all of the copy that comes out of the company

2)  I write stories

3) I read tons of material both fiction and non-fiction

4) I manage our social media presence

5)  I write non-fiction articles for books, magazines, and blogs

6)  I create workshops, write up their descriptions, create blurbs for them, and teach them

7)  I learn new stories

8)  I go to conferences where I take classes, and do the whole Networking thing

9)  I teach at conferences

10) I keynote conferences, and various other events

11)  I mentor new tellers and confer with colleagues

12)  I write this blog

13) I travel all over the world

14) I do author appearances

15)  Every now and then I show up in Unitarian pulpits

16)  I tell stories


This morning as I was getting into the shower, I was lamenting that Thursdays are my non-fiction day.  I spend the morning creating copy for things.  It is not my favorite way to spend the day.  I prefer fiction or picture books or reading or well, most of the other elements of my job.  The David scoffed at my complaint.

"Oh, poor baby."  He mocked.  "One day of the week where you have to write stuff that isn't fun.  Awww!"  He made a dramatic sigh.  "I've got to go upstairs and write out eight contracts, work on the taxes, and book four hotels.  So, go sit down and commune with your blog while I do the parts of your job that you hate."

I looked at him while wearing my shower cap and nothing else, "My job?"  I replied in melodramatic shock.  "That's your job, buddy."

So, that is the way I describe dealing with a business manager.  

The David describes his job differently:

"The hours are awful, the pay is terrible, and my boss sexually harasses me on the job."

And now all the world knows working with me is hell.

(Originally, I was going to put a pic of a woman in leather with a whip right here, but I just googled those images, and I'm pretty sure I'm not old enough to be seeing material like that, so I chose a lovely picture from Dante's Inferno instead)

For the record, I did enjoy writing the last part.

Happy Working!

SCEACA Hand outs

The 30 Million Word Gap

Betty Hart PhD and Todd Risley PhD discovered that children from the homes of socio-economically disadvantaged parents heard, on average, 30 million fewer uses of language than their middle class and upper middle class peers by the time they were three.

They called this discrepancy the 30 Million Word gap.  This lack meant that the brain did not develop a complex enough understanding of language and a hidden ceiling was created in the brain.  As the children got older and began facing more complicated literature it was discovered that they could not cope with it well.

The results were as follows…..

A lack of being able to synthesize complex language

A lack of being able to comprehend complex literature

A lack of being able to comprehend technical information

The gap continues to widen and there is no way to actually catch up.

They did note that you could force language acquisition by doing ‘role play’ activities like the bank game, but the amount of work it would take to get people to incorporate all the language they needed that way would be impossible.

Likewise it would be impossible after the age of three to use all the ‘proper kinds’ of interactive language with kids to have them catch up to their peers.

Keep in mind they were working with a limited number of families and though they could extrapolate their results and chart their predictions and those predictions were born out, they do not claim to have all the answers for populations they did not study such as rural populations or Non-English speaking people.

They were discouraged that this gap could ever be closed because of the amount of work that would be needed at the beginning of a person’s life.  It is much too expensive.  They say the technology exists to target this generation of children if someone was willing to fund it.

Storytelling Connection

Hart and Risley noted that when they used the interactive play model, children were able to synthesize the language. 

Storytelling creates a contextual link for language along the lines of the bank game.  Children can learn all sorts of things if you put them into a story.  Just as they took on characters in the bank game and went through the motions of being in the bank, so to do stories allow children to imagine and live in characters.

Little children like to hear the same stories over and over again and many times they will act them out as you tell them or take on their favorite parts.

Storytelling increases their exposure to language, helps them examine social interactions between people and engages their imagination.  Children will retell a story that they like and if they like it enough, they can easily be encouraged to act it out and many times will do that without prompting.

Children want to be the witch or the dragon or the prince or princess.  All of this contributes to imaginative play with is a very big piece in the race to help children acquire language skills on their way to becoming literate.

Andrew Biemiller does not agree that significant intervention cannot occur after the age of three.  He says that it is possible to overcome the language discrepancy, but our current system of education is not set up to deal with it.

We teach children using basic words and concepts until the fourth grade and then we expect kids to jump into complex concepts and language.  Without proper preparation children hit a kind of ceiling in fourth grade with has been called the fourth grade slump.  Many of them have a hard time catching up.

We need to spend time infusing our curriculum with language from the beginning to get kids acclimated to more complex language.

He also noted that children learn language by watching our faces and looking at our body language until the time they hit puberty.  They are watching for cues to tell them how words and phrases are used.

Biemiller believes in the theory that students do not reach proficiency with writing as well as they read and speak until about the seventh grade or puberty.  After puberty, a student’s brain integrates all of these functions.

Storytelling Connection

Storytelling allows the instructor to use all sorts of complex language.  The words, when heard in context allow the child or early adult to not only hear the words, but also get an understanding of how the words can be used.

Because people continue learning by looking at faces and bodies, telling stories where you have them staring at your face as you talk actually improves their ability to assimilate the words you are using.  They will have more ability to absorb language from watching you than they will from reading it in the text book or looking at pictures.

The introduction of storytelling at all grade levels allows you to use language the children may not have in their vocabularies.  Using words they do know around words they do not know is a way to help their brains learn how to use context.  If they get used to listening to the surrounding material to help them figure out what a word is, when they finally get into reading, they will have developed the skill of using the context of the material to help them figure out meaning.

Reading books to children they cannot read themselves is an important part of creating literate children, but telling them stories using language they are only vaguely familiar with also helps them as they read the teller for cues both contextually and physically.

E. D. Hirsh Jr. Postulates this theory

The Three Types of Language Needed to Master the Skill of Reading

1)      Aural – Language you hear but don’t use

2)      Oral – Language you use

3)      Experiential – Language you figure out by context or past experiences

1)    Aural Language                    

Aural Language is the language you hear but don’t necessarily use.  Most people know that the word octogenarian means someone who is eighty years old, but it is not a word we use in conversation.  In writing, however, authors may use a word like this on paper.  If you have never heard it nor seen it, this word will stop reading in its tracks.

Most children have heard words they do not use.  That’s fine they need to hear them even if they can’t use them as of yet.

The word bitter is an example of this.

2) Oral Language

Oral Language is the language that you pull out for everyday use.  For instance, you don’t tend to use the word forlorn in everyday conversation.  You might say someone was extremely upset or sad.  The word forlorn is not part of most people’s oral language. 

A word that is not part of your aural language cannot be part of your oral language.

3)    Experiential Language

Experiential language is the ability to extrapolate the meaning out of a word based on past experiences with the word.  An example would be the word bitter.  Most children do not use the word bitter as part of their oral language, though it is stored in their aural language.  If they are reading and they get to a sentence like this:

The old man was bitter.

They must use their knowledge of the word and try to make out what is meant.  It is obvious that someone didn’t go up to the old man and lick him, so what can bitter mean in this sentence? 

No word that is not part of your aural language can be part of your experiential language.

Comprehension

Comprehension occurs when a person is able to do several things simultaneously.

First, the brain takes in the way the text is presented and if a structure exists upon which to ‘hang’ the literature, it is activated.  In other words, what kind of text is this?  What can I expect?  Then, as the information is fed into the brain, the steps are as follows:

A-They read a sentence and make an image in their mind.

B-The next sentence might confirm their image or not.  They must decide if they are on the right track.  They either add to the image or they must construct a new image.  Meanwhile, they predict what they expect to happen next.

C-The next sentence either enhances their image or shifts it.  The reader strengthens their image and predicts what’s going to happen next.  Meanwhile the reader is still keeping all the information that has been given so far in their brain.

This is the process of comprehension.  If a person does not comprehend, it means one or more of these processes does not function.

When you teach someone how to comprehend, you must focus on all of these elements.

There are many different ways to approach teaching people to comprehend and there are lots of great books about it.  They are primarily books about teaching struggling readers.

All of the strategies are about helping children and young adults break down the elements of comprehension and walk through them one at a time until their brains learn to do it automatically.

Storytelling Connection

This is the obvious one.  Listening to stories makes a child or adult’s brain go through the motions of comprehension automatically.  A person who is listening to a story doesn’t have any other stimulus other than the teller’s face and voice. 

The process of going through the words and predicting is something that their brains learn through lots and lots of repetition of telling stories.

Traditional tales help the brain learn how to process literature.

3 little pigs

3 bears

Children learn the rhythms of the story and their brains learn what to expect.  When they begin to read stories like this, they know what is going to happen.  They have a ‘framework’ around which to hang the story.

Early stories for children employ a lot of repetitive language with only a few changes each time.

I.e. The Squeaky Door, Epaminandus, Sody Saluradus

Repetition of the framework helps the burgeoning reader learn the shape and structure of a story.  Longer stories help them organize more information.

Readers who are ready for more complex idea storage can handle stories with more interesting and diverse characters and they should be able to keep more plot elements in their brains at one time.

Older readers can follow a large number of ideas and you don’t need any repetition at all.

Even though this is a good way to look at stories, it doesn’t mean older students don’t like stories with repetition.

Telling to students of all ages and grades is a good way to continually reinforce the structure of stories, and it helps when they encounter material in print.  Their brains have a way of approaching the text.

Storytelling is amazing practice for the brain in helping a student learn the process of comprehension.

Storytelling clubs are also great for this.

Quick Recap

-Aural Language—Storytelling allows for the child to hear the language and store the words in the aural language. 

-Rhythms of Language—Children learn language by listening to others and watching their bodies.  Learning the rhythm of language helps when reading.  Dr. Seuss is a master of rhythm.  I also encourage ‘presenting’ poetry out loud to kids.

-Contextual Language—Stories help a child figure out that you can use the words you know to figure out the words you don’t know; a key skill in reading.

-Imagination Building—Storytelling propels the imagination forward because the listener is ‘forced’ to use their own images as they listen to the story.

-Vocabulary Building—Using dynamic language in a story helps children get used to complex language and it is much less threatening when they encounter it in a book.

-Learning Through Fun—Entertainment and play are the most effective ways to teach people just about anything.  If it isn’t fun, most people don’t enjoy doing it.  Storytelling makes books and literature fun.

-Experiential Language—Students can learn about other places, animals, people, cultures and customs by listening to stories.  It will help them put their reading into context.  Stories are a great way to meet people and find out more about them.

-Building Oral Language—Having students tell as well is a way of forcing them to find interesting language and use different ways to describe things.  Increasing the amount of language a person is used to using expands the accessibility of literature because the person will have more familiarity with the language.

-It Helps Build Focus—Students will sit and listen to a story for a very, very long time if they are entertained.  Helping them build the same kind of imaginative and comprehensive skills when they are reading as when they are writing is a key in getting them to want to sit and read.

-Teaches the process of Comprehension—It encourages the brain to constantly consider the material and revise as well as predict.

Young children have a hard time with this since they live in the moment, but by second grade, students should be honing this skill.

 Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young Children.   Hart, Betty PhD & Risley Todd R. PhD.  Paul H Brookes Publishing Co. inc.  (latest reprint 2000)

Reading Research to Practice:  A Series for Teachers.  Biemiller, Andrew PhD.  Brookline Books.  1999

The Schools We Need: Why We Don’t Have Them.  Hirsch, E D Jr. PhD.  Doubleday.  1996

Mosaic of Thought:  Teaching Comprehension in a Reader’s Workshop.  Zimmerman, Susan, Keene, Ellin Oliver.  Heinemann Publishers.  1997

Strategies that work:  Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding.  Harvey, Stephanie.  Goudvis, Anne.  Stenhouse Publishers.  2000.

Multicultural folktales in the classroom

 

The Shortest Distance Between

Two People is a Story

Presented by Carrie Sue Ayvar and Donna Washington

The tales we share create a sabroso -delicious- stew that bring us all to

the table to celebrate each unique flavor.

 

Stories are an integral part of all cultures. Throughout time, societies all over the world have told stories as a way of passing on their beliefs, traditions, and history. Stories tell of our customs, our geography, even of the foods we eat. Listening to folk and fairy tales helps develop cultural sensitivity, awareness, and appreciation of our own as well as other ethnicities. This can be the basis for better communication and understanding of the rich variety of ideas, religions and languages that are different from one's own.

Stories have clues or markers that color them and inform us about the peoples that created them.

These include:

            Place – village, jungle, marketplace, palace, city, etc.

            Time – Christmas, Day of the Dead, harvest festival, etc.

Food – tortillas, rice cakes, tropical fruits, poi, kimchi, etc.

Characters – Rabbi, coyote, lion, king, Sultan, Emir, etc.

Messages – values and beliefs that are part of the cultural viewpoint.

How to pick a good multicultural tale

Find a story that is right for you, one that sparks your imagination. Read or listen to several versions, if you can. It should be a story that you really like and fits your own style.

Look for a narrative that isn’t so steeped in its own culture that someone from outside of it won’t be able to follow the story.

Try to find a tale that allows you to talk about the culture including, of course, cultural markers, but not one that requires a huge amount of explanation.

A story with familiar ties to your own culture can anchor the story and help you present it with a sense of ownership.

Find the "heart" of the story. Decide what is the most important part and what it means to you. Identify the essence of the story for yourself.

 

Tips for presenting tales

Outline it. Map it either pictorially or verbally. What comes first, second or third.  Beginning, middle and end.

Visualize it. See the story clearly in your mind. Then the listener will too. Keep in mind such things as the main character, setting, time, other characters, mood, and emotions.

Memorize only important phrases or rhymes.  Use your own words, your own rhythm, and your own manner. 

Think about how you want to introduce or present the story.  Think about place & time including where, when and in what context. Is there some personal experience that you could use to identify with this culture?  How can you use this experience to bring life to your telling?

Use your voice to color the story. Fill it with expression. Think of what mood or tone you want to convey. Vary the tempo, the speed at which you speak and your volume. Remember the no in monotone!

Pauses - Use them! Ponder the power of pauses. A story is more than just individual words. It is a sum of all it's parts. Don’t be afraid to take a breath… and pause for effect.

Utilize gestures and movement to help communicate what your words are saying. Be aware of eye contact, posture, “body talk”.

When using dialects and accents, make sure you are being respectful. When in doubt, don’t!

Costuming can add but can also easily distract. Make sure that whatever props or costuming you introduce is not distracting. Find words to paint the scene and bring it to life.  

Using storytelling as a multicultural bridge

Stories become bridges when they allow you to look at another culture and see the similarities as well as understand the differences.  Our differences are often huge, but our basic human needs are the same.  Cultural differences are the result of different groups addressing the same human foibles.  Letting this human sameness be the basis for stories is usually a good start. Folktales are often beliefs in action. Learn about the background and try to understand the story from its cultural perspective.  Be careful as you choose stories for sometimes they are not about what they appear to be at first.

Resources - a sampling of multicultural storytelling resources. An excellent source for cross- cultural folktales is, of course, section 398.2 of your local library.

A Pride of African Tales by Donna Washington. HarperCollins 2004

Earth Care: World Folktales to Talk About by Margaret Read MacDonald. Linnet Books, 1999

Wonder Tales from Around the World by Heather Forest. August House, 1995

Favorite Folktales from Around the World edited by Jane Yolen. Pantheon, 1986

More Ready-To-Tell Tales from Around the World Edited by David Holt and Bill Mooney, August House, 2000

Jewish Stories One Generation Tells Another retold by Peninnah Schram. Jason Aronson Inc., 1987

Keepers of the Earth by Michael J. Caduto and Joe Bruchac. Fulcrum, Inc. 1988

Multicultural Folktales: Stories to Tell Young Children by Judy Sierra & Robert Kaminski. Oryx Press, 1991

Thirty-Three Multicultural Tales to Tell by Pleasant DeSpain. August House

How Many Spots Does A Leopard Have? And Other Tales by Julius Lester. Scholastic Inc., 1989

Momentos Mágicos/Magic Moments by Olga Loya. August House, 1997

Posted with the kind permission of Janice Del Negro

You Have To Be Carefully Taught: Reflections on MLK Day.

I was almost seven months old the day Martin Luther King Jr. was killed.  My mother was living in Beaumont, TX with my elder brother and me.  As a young army wife, she was undoubtedly getting ready for her next move to Fort Benning, Ga.

Most of my young life, I wondered why my parents didn’t take part in the whole civil rights movement.  Why didn’t they march?  Why don’t they have stories about ‘being there’?  One of the most important movements in the history of our country, and they missed it.  What on earth were they doing?

My parents grew up in Texas.  Both Beaumont and Ft. Worth were very segregated.  They went to black schools.  In elementary school it was a neighborhood school.  Middle and high school wasn’t anywhere near their homes, and they had to get up early to take busses to those schools.  They passed many other schools that were much closer.  My mother always points out that in the service of segregation, the southern states were happy to bus black kids great distances to keep them separate, but when bussing was instituted to desegregate the schools, suddenly it was a terrible thing. 

My great grandmother raised my mother.  Topsy Lewis didn’t grow up with Jim Crow.  Jim Crow was something that came into vogue to make sure that black folks didn’t forget that they were black.  It burned my great grandmother no end to have to sit in the back of the bus, so she took it as little as possible.  In fact, she stayed in her neighborhood, a place called The Bottoms, rather than deal with the outside world.

My great grandmother taught my mother a number of lessons.  Here are a few of them.

-Your money is the same color as theirs.  If you can’t go in the front door and spend it, you don’t go in there at all. 

My mother never went to restaurants or movies unless she could go in, buy popcorn, and sit where she wanted.  Guess how long it was before she went to a movie?

-Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you aren’t good enough.  Anyone who would think that about you doesn’t know you.

My mother took this to mean ‘don’t let anyone talk down to you’.  I remember one occasion in my childhood where we’d gone into a store to buy something, and the clerk said something offensive or condescending, so mom flashed her gold American Express, gave the person a little smile, and left after making a comment about finding a ‘better’ place to shop.

-Nobody will ever give you anything, ever.  No matter what else happens to you in life, you are black, and they will never let you forget it.  They would kill you before they would acknowledge any part of this country belongs to you.

My mother took this to mean that you have to be one hundred fifty percent better at whatever you do than the best white person just to be considered worthy to be treated only slightly better than less than.

-Be careful.  Be wary.  Don’t put yourself in harm’s way.  Black people can’t get justice in this world.

My mother took this to mean that you stayed far from anything you knew was dangerous.  In my great grandmother’s world, there were quite a few things black folks in general, and black women in particular had to fear.

When the civil rights movement was happening in the 60's, it was not changing anything that was going on in east Texas.  My mother says they watched all that marching and yelling and struggle like a television show, because that’s how it was presented where she lived.  It wasn’t held up to be anything more than a few black folks getting above themselves, and see how much pain they are experiencing because of it? If they would just settle down, they’d stop getting hurt.

It made me think about the parts of the country that were against making Martin Luther King Jr. Day a holiday.  They argued that his work did not rise to the level of national importance.  To this day, there are still those who don't want his legacy taught in schools. 

If you look at the impact of Martin Luther King’s legacy on our country, it is obvious his life’s work changed the course of our nation, but if you watched the whole proceeding in certain parts of the country while it was going down, you would have grown up thinking it didn’t accomplish much of anything, and as an adult, you might actually be confused as to why this bizarre little hiccup in history is getting so much play.

My mother taught us variations on what she learned from my great grandmother.  How could she not? The world was a different place as we grew.  She raised us as an army officer’s wife, not a woman who took in washing to help make ends meet.  We always went to excellent schools, not segregated schools where our books were five years out of date, and the only time we got new materials was when the white schools updated their stuff, and shipped the old things across town to the black schools.  We lived on army bases, and basically left home first thing in the morning, spent the day riding, running, swimming, walking with kids from all over the world who looked different, spoke different languages, ate different foods, and had different ideas about how things worked.  

Military Bases Were A Tiny United Nations

As we head into 2015, our country has already seen a spate of racial violence. We are talking about race, and how we deal with it in society more than we have in a generation.  We are beginning to confront the unspoken fears, hatreds, beliefs, and anger that we have been unwilling to face because it is ugly, and it makes us look small and pitiful.

What will we teach our children?  What will be the lessons we give them because of the struggle that Martin Luther King Jr. took upon himself? 

Race relations in our country have never been better.  You can point to all the terror and darkness we see on the screen, and you can ask, ‘How can you say that?’ 

The answer is, once upon a time, we were carefully taught you weren’t allowed to talk about it, and if you did, you were only allowed to think about it one way.  That isn’t true anymore.

Once upon a time you couldn’t laugh at racists.  You couldn’t call them out.  You couldn’t even suggest they were doing something heinous and wrong.  If you spoke about race, you had to do it in the context of comparing races and saying which one was superior.  Any other kind of discussion about race made no sense.

These days we can’t shut up about race.  We talk about it all the time.  The difference is, talking about it qualitatively will get you in trouble. 

This has led to people trying to change the meaning of the word racist.

Now, if you talk about race at all or try to put it in context of a situation, there are those who will call you a racist or a race baiter.  There are also those who just want to pretend that race isn’t an issue at all, and if you say it is, you are promoting racism.

Photo credit

Then there are the people who keep announcing we live in a post racial world.  If only.

photo credit

My parents raised my siblings and me to be proud of who we are.  They raised us to speak our minds.  They raised us to stand up for what we believe. 

They forgot to raise us to be afraid of people who were different, or suspicious of different ideas.

They forgot to tell us there were places we could not go or things we could not do.

From my trip to Hong Kong

They even forgot to tell us that people would try to stop us because we were black....this caused some strange conversations when we hit our teenage years, encountered bouts of racism for the first time, and were utterly baffled about it, but that’s another story.

All of these ‘don’ts’ seem to have slipped their mind when they raised us.

My mother never marched in a civil rights demonstration.  My father never picketed, or crossed a bridge, or stood peacefully holding someone’s hand while authorities or regular citizens of a different color abused him, spat on him or called him names. 

Still, I think they did their part.  They taught their children.  They taught us very carefully.

Happy MLK Day!