'You don't spend your life hanging around books without learning a thing or two.' 
                                           ― Lemony Snicket
 

Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in The Atlantic about reparations. It's reprinted in his book, We Were Eight Years in Power. You're persuaded by him, the way writes. He tells it like it was and tells about the parts that still are. Because of the way it was, it is the way it is. Of course, you say as you read it. Of course. But Coates did the work to make you say that. It's a piece of writing school kids ought to read. What if they can't read well enough to read it though? It should be a goal of schools that their students will be able to read writing like Coates's. That should be the goal. Above everything.

'Literature is the safe and traditional vehicle through which we learn about the world and pass on values from one generation to the next. Books save lives.' 
                                                                        ― Laurie Anderson 

Am I going to the mat for kids who aren't being taught to read well? I put in time. I hold the sign. I do this blog. I read about it. I talk about it. To look at me and what I do, you'd think I'm very committed to it all. How committed though? Unless you go to the mat for something, you're not doing enough.

I’ve always thought the public schools needed to study the best literature. I always taught Oedipus Rex to all kinds of what they used to call remedial or development classes. The reason those kids are in those classes is that they’re bored to death; so you can’t give them boring things. You have to give them the best there is to engage them.
                    -Toni Morrison  in the Paris Review interview.