Bronwyn Harris, Author

As a teacher, you never know which of your students are going to be the ones you stay in touch with. One of my biggest, and most wonderful, surprises was reconnecting with "Chantal" over many years. Chantal was a very intelligent, very angry child, and she had reason to be angry. I won't go into her background in detail here, but her mother was not present and her father was elderly when she was born, among other issues. Chantal pretty much raised herself. She was one of those students who you would like to see succeed, but you're just not sure it will happen. I lost touch with her when I left the classroom, and wondered what had happened. Happily, she found my phone number when she was in high school and called me to let me know she had straight As, and I was thrilled. We've kept in touch and seen each other off and on since then and I've gotten to hear about her jobs, her marriage, and her three, soon to be four children. We had lunch recently ...

I was honored to speak to a class of early childhood educators at Mills College this week. Most of the students are hoping to work with preschoolers with special needs; a calling that is both extremely important and also drastically underpaid and under-respected. I usually hate it when anyone refers to teachers as heroes (I think it simplifies things and makes it easy for others to believe they can't help) but I find myself calling preschool teachers and early childhood interventionists heroes, because they can make such a profound difference. When I taught third grade, I learned to tell my class at the beginning of the year that if anyone had ever called them "bad" or "stupid," that person was wrong. Most of them had already absorbed these labels as truth, and undoing that was incredibly difficult. I told the early childhood educators, and added that they have a unique opportunity to change this. By the time I got the students, in third grade, it somet...

I wanted to let you all know of my new part-time role with Children Rising, an organization I strongly believe in and have partnered with in the past. I gave the keynote speech at their gala last year, which I think sums up why they are so wonderful. Please check them out at their website , Twitter , or Facebook , and follow the stories of the wonderful kids they serve!