The Hero and the Dream

What if I developed a research based family reading program to target comprehension skills and motivation to read?  What if I worked with authors and publishers to make quality children's literature in Spanish available and affordable?  What if I networked with the hundreds of already existing after-school programs that work with kids in poor neighborhoods all over Latin America so that they could increase the effectiveness of their tutoring/home work help time?  What if I did all of that together? Could I?  Would it make a difference?

Because that is, right now, my still germinating dream.  I'm not sure on the details, and it's big enough to make me think that maybe, just maybe, I should dream smaller, reach for more attainable goals.  I start to doubt, not only myself, but that one person can make a measurable change on more than a micro scale.

And then, I ran into Gezelius.  Not literally, of course.  Johannes Gezelius was a Bishop here in Turku in the 1600s that I learned about as I did research for the paper for my history class.  He single handedly wrote textbooks, founded a paper mill and a printing press, made school reforms, and started a church-based system of popular education.  His primer was used here in Finland for 150 years.

His story encouraged me.  He had similar motivations, and in some ways, even faced similar issues.  And the results to his life's work are still evident today.

I have no grand schemes of being famous and influential enough that someone will write a history paper about me 400 years from now.  But I do hope that, whether my dream morphs over the next few years, or stays the same, I'll pursue it and see results that last.