Portrait of My Children: An Invitation to Love

By Nina Zaragoza

Enter Dr. Nina's learning communities and experience children and adults from around the world reading, writing, reciting and singing.

Hear their voices and connect to their stories as she guides you to create your own vibrant, loving communities.

Dr. Nina also includes reflective questions that will inspire you personally and professionally.

Enjoy the journey!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nina Zaragoza
• Release date: May 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201731007

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 Nina Zaragoza, Ph.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1    Hello/Bonjour/Salut!!

Chapter 2    My People

Chapter 3    Dreams; The Dream Keeper

Chapter 4    Invitation

Chapter 5    Mother to Son

Chapter 6    He Knows My Name

Chapter 7    Bear In There

Chapter 8    What A Wonderful World

Chapter 9    Two Friends; Hello Everybody

Chapter 10   Poem; Hope

Chapter 11   A Word on Implementation of Poetry and Music

Chapter 12   Telling Stories: Connecting Through Dialogue Journals

Chapter 13   Telling Stories: Writing for Publication

Chapter 14   Final Thoughts for Now

Dedication

To my children Christian, Michael and Derek and my grandson Joaquin. May they continue to rest in love. To all my students, teachers, volunteers may they love themselves and others.

Introduction

Hi Everyone!

What a privilege to share some of my stories with you and I hope you enjoy the journey! Yes, I actually say enjoy because with this book I want to awaken the joy within you. I want to inspire you and allow your spirit to shine. Does this sound strange for the beginning of a book on education? But maybe you already have a suspicion about the strangeness of this book because of its title..it actually contains the word love. My definition of education founds itself on love. What forms the basis of your definition? What words, actions come to mind when you think of education? What educational actions can you already see me employing even in this first paragraph? Yes! I ask questions, lots and lots of questions. What do you notice about my questions? My way of speaking with you? Notice I even say with you instead of to you? What does this choice of words tell you my view of education?

Because I view education as dynamic and relational I strive to ask genuine, open-ended questions. These questions help build our understanding of each other and of the material we study. I strive not to talk to you but with you because teaching and learning happens within relationships and not within stagnant recipes. Throughout this book, then, I offer you reflective questions and exercises to work through with your heart and mind when alone, within discussion, and by written work. Teaching and learning does not happen in a mechanic shop! We work with complex people (including you and me) that come filled with talents, stories, feelings! We come with a lived life that continues to unfold!

I present to you some of the lives that weave in and out of mine in so many places around the world. In these pages you meet my toddlers from Haiti, Mozambique, and Greece. You hear my adult students, men and women, single and married, with children and without all yearning to learn English, to help their families and children. You see my elementary school children in New York City, Haiti, Palestine, and India. They learn in beautifully equipped classrooms, in tents knees squeezed together to give another more room, in church basements and chapels, in small rooms that shelter them for an hour from the streets of a red-light district, and in my homes in Brooklyn, Pune, and Port au Prince.

At first glance the landscape of this book appears unordered and tangled with joyful stories here and sorrowful stories there. Stories scatter like fall leaves with one child hugging my waist next to an adult English learner wiping away a tear. Cookie-smeared smiles stand alongside pictures of bullet-ridden death. Immerse yourself in this unruly garden and relish in both its complexity and simplicity. Listen to the springs meandering throughout watering the roots with love. Hear the sound of an orchestra somewhere in the garden among the roses and the thorn bushes and stop, listen. The sound of each individual instrument blend together to create a unique beauty. And now I invite you into the garden of my teaching life.

The poems and songs I share with you also follow no order. In one community I begin with My People in another What A Wonderful World and another He Knows My Name. If the community professes my same belief in Jesus Christ we often start with a worship song like Open the Eyes of My Heart or Father I Adore You. But no matter what songs, poems, or beliefs we all speak and live love. Yes, yet again I point you to love. Do you see we all desire to give and receive love? And we all can! Let our stories compel you to explore this ability within you!

In fact, many who work with me, Kris, Ritchie, Melissa, Markens, Jameson, Gariel, Wildridge, Sandip, Savvy, Sylee, Rojit, Hayley, hold no teaching credentials. They work as nurses, engineers, computer programmers, attend high school, or not. Some live in the neighborhood they serve and others travel over an hour to arrive in a place so unlike their own. But they all stand together on the decision to love the students in their care and help them excel. They learn to put into practice education in its truest sense: to care for, to nourish, to lead forth, to draw out and to inspire. You hear their voices in the transcripts in Part 2 of this book. These transcripts illustrate that educational recipes, developmental charts, psychological/educational labels and even degrees in Education pale in the face of love.

When you think of your most loved teachers what comes to your mind? What words do you hear them say? Do you see their written