Literacy, Education, Service!

The three areas that are on my mind this week are literacy, education, and community service.

1. I love books – reading is a window to a new world. (Super Rich by Russell Simmons is our February book of the month)
2. Education is the key to new experiences and new opportunities.
3. Community service is what I breathe!  Service benefits the community and builds better citizens.

For this blog, I am going to highlight famous quotes or what I like to think of as “words of wisdom” on each subject.  What’s your favorite quote?

LITERACY

• Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. ~ Barbara Tuchman
•  “So it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young birds take to the sky.” – William James
•  ”The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think.” James McCosh
•  “Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.” – Mason Cooley

EDUCATION

• ‎”Educational Equity is the Civil Rights issue of our generation.” – Education Secretary, Arne Duncan.
• “There is no stronger weapon against inequality and no better path to opportunity than an education that can unlock a child’s God-given potential.” President Barack Obama
•  An arts education helps build academic skills and increase academic performance, while also providing alternative opportunities to reward the skills of children who learn differently. ~ Gavin Newsom
•  ”A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” ~ United Negro College Fund
• “No one rises to low expectations.” ~ Les Brown
• “Learning to high standards cannot take place when students are bored, have no opportunities for experiential learning or civic action (civic education, service learning or other approaches), and have limited opportunities for extracurricular activities.” ~ Youth Engagement in High School written by Yonezwa, Jones, and Joselowsky
• “One’s work may be finished someday, but one’s education never.” ~ Alexandre Dumas, novelist, playwright (1824-1895)
• “A child cannot be taught by someone who despises him.” ~ James Baldwin
• “Upon the subject of education … I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
• “In an effective classroom students should not only know what they are doing, they should also know why and how.” ~ Harry K. Wong
• “You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.” ~ Clay P. Bedford
•  ”Real education means to inspire people to live more abundantly, to learn to begin with life as they find it and make it better.” ~ Carter G. Woodson, historian, educator (1875-1950)

COMMUNITY SERVICE

• “Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then…do something. Don’t just stand there, make it happen.” ~ Lee Iacocca
• A youth from a family where at least one parent volunteers is almost twice as likely to volunteer as a youth with no family members who volunteer – and nearly three times as likely to volunteer on a regular basis. (Corporation for National and Community Service, 2005)
• “How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong.” ~ George Washington Carver
• “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” ~Anne Frank
• “We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community… Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.” ~ Cesar Chavez
• “The future which we hold in trust for our own children will be shaped by our fairness to other people’s children.” ~ Marian Wright Edelman
• “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” Sir Winston Churchill