An Extraordinary Evening with Extraordinary Moms
I have a coaster that has traveled the world with me for over a decade. My parents lived in Virginia, and one of my favorite places to see when I would come home on military leave was Thomas Jefferson’s estate, Monticello. Thomas Jefferson is one of my favorite Founding Fathers and Presidents, second only to George Washington. The coaster that I have packed up countless times from military base to military base and now is with us here in our new home in Virginia is from the Monticello gift shop I bought over a decade ago. It has one of Jefferson’s famous sayings :
“I cannot live without books.”
I grew up surrounded by books. My mom passed down a love of reading to me that she undoubtedly got from her parents. I don’t have nearly the collection that my mother has, but it’s still pretty extensive, and to this day, I will read just about anything I can get my hands on. My mother taught me that reading could take you to exciting places you might never get to see. Reading opens your mind to new ideas, new dreams, new experiences. We weren’t destitute growing up, but we weren’t necessarily ‘well off.’ My parents did a good job not making it evident to me, but I always knew that we had less than others growing up. So when my friends would go on big trips in the summer and we wouldn’t, when my friends wore brand label clothes, and I didn’t, and when my friends got brand new cars, and I didn’t, I knew we didn’t have the same means as they did. But it never bothered me, and I think part of the reason was I had the entire world if I wanted to in any of the thousands of books that lined the walls of our house. So if I am sad, furious, or feeling out of sorts, the place I want to be is a bookstore because being surrounded by books makes me feel safe.
It’s hard to find people who love reading as much as my family does. While I am no hater of the digital age, there is no denying that progress in technology has affected how much America’s youth reads. I’m the type who still buys regular books versus listening to them on audible because I like the smell of a book and how it feels in your hands. I have recently gotten to know a woman who shares the same love for reading that I do and a passion for re-igniting that spark in today’s youth.
Kelly and Brandon Michon were kind enough to host this month’s Moms For Liberty — Loudoun County Chapter meeting in their beautiful home. While I’m not a shy person, I tend to feel uncomfortable when in other people’s homes, but I saw some of my old friends as I walked into their house. Kelly had a collection of her children’s books out on display, and for a kid like me that was a bit of a loner growing up, books were easily my first real close friends. Some of these friends are my own children’s first close friends. Upon seeing Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (one of my daughter’s favorites), I knew that Kelly was my type of mama.
Kelly has a passion for reading, which she has cultivated in her children. While Brandon is well known in Loudoun County as “that dad” who ignited the parent movement in the nation, Kelly is just as active in advocating for change in the public education system. Loudoun County Public School utilizes the Units of Study created by Lucy Calkins for its reading curriculum. The problem is that it doesn’t teach kids how to read. There have been numerous reports and bipartisan agreement that the Units of Study is ineffective at teaching literacy. After the meeting, I did my own research and read one such report titled Comparing Reading Research to Program Design done January 2020 by Student Achievement Partners. The non-profit commissioned seven literacy experts to evaluate the curriculum for the study. Overall, the experts found that the visually appealing curriculum was insufficient and had various significant failings when developing literacy. One such failing Kelly highlighted in depth at the meeting was the lack of utilizing phonics to teach children how to read. Now when I heard that, I thought, how do you learn how to read without understanding phonics? The alternative Units of Study pushes is essentially guessing using visual clues from the pages of books.
Just let that sink in for a second.
Instead of learning how to read by recognizing sight words, sounding out words, breaking down syllables, children are told to guess what is written on the pages based on the pictures.
Fast forward out of elementary school for a minute.
I don’t recall a lot of pictures in the books I had to read when I got my Undergraduate and Graduate Degrees, do you?
What should be taught in school is a Science of Reading curriculum. Science of Reading focuses on phonics and sight words versus cueing (which is just guessing). While there is bipartisan support to replace this curriculum with a Science of Reading format, there are hurdles to get there. The main obstacle is, of course, money, which tends to be the source of most obstacles. It would cost a lot of money to purchase the new curriculum materials and probably even more cumbersome training the teachers in the new curriculum. So naturally, the question came up from the Moms For Liberty crew,
“What can we do?”
A problem-solver like most moms, Kelly had great ideas on how Moms For Liberty and parents, in general, can help. In addition to advocating for curriculum change at our school boards and with our teachers/administrators, she had innovative ideas like a reading list. Essentially books that moms recommend for children. There has been a lot of rhetoric behind the push to remove salacious reading material from school libraries and how that paints a picture of book banning. Instead of just asking for these books to be removed, a positive alternative would be to ask that they be replaced with tried and true books. In addition, library registration drives and book drives can be an excellent opportunity to affect positive change and ignite the spark of reading.
As a Moms For Liberty member and avid reader, I’m happy to start with a book recommendation. One of my favorites that I read to my five-year-old is What Do You Do with a Problem by Kobi Yamada. Other books in the series include What Do You Do with a Chance and What Do You Do with an Opportunity. All three are beautifully illustrated and are not only whimsical but filled with practical implications.
I chose What Do You Do with a Problem because I believe that mothers and fathers all over this country in groups like Moms For Liberty and others grapple with this question every day. Whether it’s the problem of our education system, ineffective and divisive curriculum, social media pressures, inflation, you name it, we all wonder what we can do with these problems. The future of our country depends on us raising resilient, intelligent, and innovative thinkers who act with kindness, integrity, and courage in the face of adversity. People like Kelly Michon and her husband are no different than the rest of us out here, trying to do the best for our kids and do right by our communities.
When I moved out to Virginia, the first group I looked up was Moms For Liberty. I had seen the founders speak on television months prior while still in Oklahoma, and I felt very connected to their message. Since joining the Loudoun County Chapter, I have felt inspired and genuinely accepted by this fantastic group of women. They began this month’s meeting with what is known as a Madison Moment. James Madison is considered the Father of the Constitution and an intellectual giant. A Madison Moment in this context reflects on a Founding Father quote. This month the quote came from Benjamin Franklin and is relatively well known :
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
As we forge forward post COVID and reflect on all we gave up for safety from the virus, we can’t forget the cost our children paid. Literacy, social skills, mental health, and mathematics in every area that matters in their development paid a hefty price to secure some safety. The freedom to learn, interact, develop, and explore was their payment for that safety. We must never forget that, and we must guard against it ever happening again.
As I sat in the Michon’s living room and listened to the Madison Moment, I was absorbed by Kelly’s passion for literacy. I was engaged in Brandon’s plans to institute required financial literacy classes in high schools nationwide. And perhaps the most inspired listening to the other mothers interact with questions on how they can help and ideas on what we can do better. I couldn’t help but feel that the Founding Fathers would be proud. There is no doubt that the direction of our country is fraught with problems and bad actors with little regard for what our country stands for. But the fact that there were some individually ordinary people willing to come together on a Wednesday night to discuss how we can make things better, well, that’s just extraordinary, and I am proud to be counted as one of them.
Our nation was built by men who sat in rooms together to have thoughtful discussion and debate. Our country will be saved by mothers who sit in rooms together to have thoughtful discussion and debate. Yes, indeed, Madison and Jefferson would be proud.
