Another Fabulous Day Collaborating with @FairfieldSOE @FairfieldU. Thankful to Dr. John Drazan and His Engineering Team

For several years, Dr. John Drazan and I have talked basketball, youth programming, community-engaged  learning, and collaboration. Until this summer, we haven't found the exact way to do so, although the past two summers we've received hints. William King, an ESL teacher and coach at Central High School, who works closely with CWP-Fairfield and is a Fairfield University Grad has been bringing students to both of our programs. On a whim, I wrote a grant to see if we could better organize and, lucky for us, it was funded by the Bridgeport Rotary Club, which is allowing us to bring teachers to John's programs and our young people to his program to learn with colleges students mentoring King's high school students.

Yesterday simply was a fusion of all the worlds...human togetherness as planned by the grant. We engineered this. 

I was not only amazed by how well Dr. Drazan communicated the work he does as a college researcher to our Little Lab for Big Imaginations (grades 3-5), but also how well his college students work with King's high school students to mentor them to also work with young people on their STEM research. It is an art, indeed. The kids loved rotating through the different options to test speed, agility, resilience, and perseverance....all part of what Dr. Drazan studies with his students. 

In the Little Lab, we've been working on Engineering Human togetherness with a strong emphasis that writers engineer language, too. We build quite a library of books and the activities helped to lead to this point and will culminate with students writing their pieces for publication...the 14th year in a 40 year tradition at Fairfield University. 

I'm still processing the magic of what we witnessed: 16 kids, six teachers, a dozen Fairfield students, and ten as many high school kids using engineering to partner with each other to learn. I'm glad we bought the kids magic wands and wizard hats. That about right.

On another note, I took Karal for a long walk where a woman approached me, looking very tired and saying needed water. I wasn't near my house, so I said I didn't live nearby. She said she was homeless. Later, when I went to buy marshmallows for activities tomorrow, I noticed she was set up in a little gazebo near the park by my house...She must of wandered that way. I came home and couldn't get her out of my mind. I went back out in my car and drove to the park to bring her a tall bottle of cold water. She was writing on pieces of paper (journaling), but my guess is she was quite confused in her ways, too. I couldn't imagine wandering in this heat without a home or fresh water to drink. She took the water and said, "Bless you." I simply responded, "No. Bless you. You deserve to cool yourself off." 

I thought about calling the police, but I imagine others have called. I simply wanted to give her a little refreshment to fight the temperatures. Not much...but it hit me hard. I'm thankful for any and all who look out for those who struggle like she seemed to be. The gesture was small...at first I tried to keep it out of my mind, but I couldn't. She only wanted water...an hour later, when I knew where she was settled and I was buy my refrigerator at home, getting water was a no-brainer. I simply went out in my car to where she was under a sleeping bag with all her papers and handed her the bottle. It's no way for anyone to live.

Perhaps, as a civilized society, we should engineer better ways to look out for others, no matter their circumstance. With all the excess this nation has, it simply seems we could be doing more.