Over the past few weeks, I've interviewed several musicians and artists who've shared about their own creative lifelines and the impact those lifelines have had on their broader communities. This morning, I’m so excited to interview Jessica Craft, founder of Rock to the Future, an incredible organization that provides free and low-cost music education to low-income kids and teens in Philadelphia. A: Jessica, thanks so much for chatting with me today! J: Thanks for having me! A: How did Rock to the Future come about? J: In 2010, I started Rock to the Future with seed funding of just $15,000 from Women for Social Innovation. I worked with Josh (my then boyfriend, now husband) on a volunteer ba
When I was 26 and newly pregnant with my second child, I made the decision to go back to school to earn my MA in English. When I told this to people, they had a variety of opinions about it (namely, “Are you out of your mind?”), but once Charlotte was born and school was successfully underway, the question I got most often was, “How do you do it?” People wanted to know how I managed school work and class time while also raising two kids under three, running a house, etc… They were often surprised at the answer. Because back then I had a secret weapon—a small piece of advice that someone had given me about priorities. I had gotten abundantly clear that my top two priorities were my children a
Last week, I wrote about the concept of “radical empathy”—the idea of TRYING to “walk around in someone else’s skin” even when you know that true understanding might be impossible. The treatment of those who struggle with active addiction calls for radical empathy, as often the disease causes behavior that’s very hard to understand. This morning, I’m lucky enough to sit down with my friend and local artist, Lisa Kelley, to hear about her incredible program Tea and Textiles, which offers just this kind of experience to the homeless and addicted on the streets of Kensington in Philadelphia. A: Good morning, Lisa! Thanks for chatting with me today! L: Hi, Abbey! Thank you for the opportunity! A
With winter term winding down, I’m currently wrapping up a unit on To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAM). I rediscovered this gem last year, when subbing in a high school English class. In rereading the story as an adult, I found that I wanted to more fully explore the thematic layers (empathy, moral development, the definition of courage) in a college classroom where I would have the freedom to explore these ideas in a modern cultural (yes, even political) context. I haven’t been disappointed. My students (a mixture of sophomores through seniors) know their history, and yet, for the most part, they are still able to consider these themes through a modern cultural lens. However, when I asked the clas
