Kid Quixotes: A Group of Students, Their Teacher, and the One-Room School Where Everything Is Possible
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Book Overview
"In my years of experience as
a writer and as a college professor, I have never seen anything like this: the
love for language, the passion for discussion, clarity of mind, and humility of
heart. Stephen Haff invents impossible projects and makes them possible."
--Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive
The unlikely, inspiring true story of a one-room school where children of undocumented immigrants and their teacher discover their voices and speak truth to power.
Still Waters
in a Storm is an after-school program held in a small room in Bushwick,
Brooklyn; it is a place for kids to practice reading and writing in English,
Spanish, and Latin. For the students, many living in constant fear of
deportation, Still Waters is a refuge. For Stephen Haff, a former public-school
teacher, it is the sanctuary he built following a breakdown caused by bipolar
depression. At Still Waters, all agreed that there would only be one rule: "Everyone
listens to everyone." And this has unlocked spectacular potential.
Since 2016, the students have been collectively
translating Don Quixote into English, taking the Spanish tale--a story about a dreamer who
never gives up--and adapting it into a bilingual musical. Six-year old Sarah tells
of her mother's journey across the desert from Mexico riding on the back of a
tiger. Alex, a very private teenager, sings her coming out song to standing
ovations. As the kids perform their work across NYC, they learn that they
belong in this country--their voices amplifying to deliver a message of
diversity, love, hope, and resilience essential to us all.
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