This is not directly a story of how your books have affected a class but rather an attempt to use you to impact the future of our school.
I teach high school science, biology, chemistry and college level anatomy and physiology. In an attempt to increase literacy I assigned my college level course two book reviews over the year. One was a fiction novel of their choice that applied to the medical field, the had to be a nonfiction, preferably autobiographical/biographical work dealing with the field of medicine. One of my students did a review of Tuesdays with Morrie.
This got my wheels turning. Aside from teaching science i’m very invoved in school culture. I advise a Friends of Rachel club (an internation initiative to honor one of those murdered in the Columbine incident for her determination to use random acts of kindness to change her school). I also am a member of our SIT committee (school improvement team). The SIT committee uses our first three days of school to attempt to set the tone for the year. Last year was “teamwork” the year before “random acts of kindness.” This year our theme is “it matters… you matter.”
So that was all very long winded, but basically, you have a very unique perspective on apprecaiting life, the opportunities before you, etc. I was wondering how someone is to go about getting you to guest speak for a difficult high school audience.
We don’t have unlimited funds, so there is a possibility we can’t even afford you, but I thought i’d ask. We are a first ring suburb, we have a high incidence of apathethy in our student body and a large problem with illiteracy and consequently low levels of achievement (low levels of even believing it matters).
Now I know the odds are slim to none, but we need a guest speaker to start our first day of school. It would be an hour of lenght, Sept 7th, 2011. If not this year, we would be interested in hand-crafting our next years initiative to have you speak opening day 2012. Do you have any interest in traveling to Buffalo NY to inspire our students? Can you tell me your fees and availability?
I completely understand if you are inundated, not interested, or simply not available, but would you mind getting back to me at your earliest convenience? Thanks so much for your time and reading this!
Joelle Silver
Cheektowaga Central High School, Cheektowaga, NY
Anatomy & Physiology
11th – 12th Grade
