A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

As a child, my favorite part of a book was the table of contents. I remember curling up beside my grandmother in the big swing on her front porch as she described all the stories found in my favorite Richard Scarry book. After she read the titles and we looked at the pictures, I would try to guess what the story was going to be about--and I loved every minute of it. I always knew I was having a wonderful time with my grandmother; what I didn't know was that our experiences were laying the groundwork for nearly all the thinking and learning I would ever do.

Twenty years ago my grandmother had no idea about the brain research that was just beginning at colleges and universities around the country; she simply did--instinctively--what her mother and grandmother had done with her. And I am very grateful.

Like many college students in our country, I have gradually come to realize how lucky I was as a very young child--and how much students our age can do to help others who haven't been given the attention many of us were fortunate enough to receive. For these reasons, I started a grassroots volunteer group called the Harvard Emerging Literacy Project (HELP) that places weekly and biweekly undergraduate literacy volunteers in Cambridge Head Start classrooms. Our program, however, is just one example of the many ways college students can engage in this sort of work. The goal of this booklet is to help interested college students get started, and its publication was made possible by a summer internship with the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute on Early Childhood Development and Education.

At college it is so easy to get wrapped up in coursework and grades. Working with these children, however, provides a lot of perspective--often I feel as if I'm learning more from them than they're learning from me. One young girl from a Head Start classroom near campus stands out in particular. In coming to know her I quickly found that I was the one being educated; and slowly I learned the difficult lessons that my four-year-old friend had been forced to deal with all too quickly. Child abuse, poverty, violence, and a host of other daunting obstacles still face my young friends and their classmates across our country. This, however, is not the aspect of the experience that stands out most in my mind. Instead, I remember these children's tremendous capacities to forgive, trust, and love.

Sometimes even college students are surprised by what they find in the table of contents. I know I have been deeply enriched by the experience I shared with these young children. It is my hope that many of you will share this joy as well.

[Foreword]

[One Community Is Making A Difference]