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A few years ago the National School Reform Faculty (NSRF) revised its mission statement to include language about working to "foster educational and social equity." The revision makes sense to the author as a graduate student in urban education and a former Philadelphia middle school teacher, as well as in her role as a facilitator of Critical Friends Groups (CFGs) and CFG coaches. Each role has convinced her that racism and other forms of bias are the greatest barriers that everyone faces in making a positive transformation in educational experiences, especially when they involve poor, inner-city kids of color. She calls herself an "inside-outsider" because she is an insider (an educator working in schools) and also an outsider (a guest facilitator in schools where she formerly taught). As a white teacher she is likewise a cultural outsider in schools where children of color predominate. Here, she talks about Jacqueline Jordan Irvine's "Educating Teachers for Diversity: Seeing with a Cultural Eye" which suggests that everyone can work to see with a "third eye"--an eye that "sees a different picture and examines alternative explanations." She also considers reflective questions from Nancy Mohr and Linda Christensen's "Reading, Writing and Rising Up" would be helpful in developing the lens of her "third eye."

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert