[inaudible conversations] >> good evening. on behalf of -- bradley graham and -- on behalf of the entire staff, welcome. it's a pleasure to have you here and a pleasure to be hosting nadia lopez here to discuss their book by bridge to brilliance." if you have any is nomaking device -- noise making devices take a moment to silence them. nadia will discuss her book for 30 minutes and we'll take questions. we encourage questions of just other use this microphone here by the pillars so everyone can hear and for the c-span audience. after the question and answers it's a great help if you fold up your chair and just place it against the bookshelf and come up and get your book signed and say hello and the becomes are for sale right where you walk in. nadia lopez is the founding principle of mt. haul bridges academy. she committed to creating a an environmenty students, staff, work together to create successfully engaged adults. the bridge to brilliance tells both her story and the school's, from nadia's only middle school days where the kind in as staff help her to achieve. please welcome nadia lopez. [applause] >> good evening, thank you so much for having me. can everyone hear me in the back? so i guess shy start off by explaining why i wrote the book in the first place, and it really came down to, there was a narrative about the community that i served in brownsville, brooklyn. i'm a brooklyn girl. i'm nowed be a brooklyn girl. and i was born and raised in crown heights. growing up i had to deal with gangs. growing up i had to deal with the crack era. growing up i had to deal with my parents separating. but i would was able to succeed and it was because my parents, prior to them separating, who come from got mole la and honduras -- guatemala and honduras, believed in the power of education and when they came to country they didn't come with way. they found each other on a dance floor in the bronx. and once i came to the world, my mother felt like the only thing that she could provide for me was a solid education. so in new york city, we are zoned by districts, and so my mom -- she was clever. the decide that the district we lived in wasn't going to provide me with the excellent education. that she felt was going to give me the pathway to success. so what she did was go to a neighbor, literally three blocks away and ask him if it was possible to get a rent receipt so that she can place me in school across the street from his house. because of my mom's relentless pursuit in me getting into a really good elementary school, it got me into one of the top middle schools. back then it was junior high schools. and it was for gifted and talented children. and it was right -- it was fairly nor the projects of fort green, and brooklyn tech, one of the specialized high schools, actually the hub of where one of the most know tierous gangs dime be, the deciptico noh. any mom was not concerned about the violence. set was concerned if would get a quality education. so every day i got on the train at the age of 11, and i made sure that i was able to learn, understand what i was learning because my mother made it clear when i got home she couldn't be able to help me. from there i ended up going to april of randolph high school which is also a challenging neighborhood in harlem. but it had an excellent education, which led me to wagner college. and the reason why i'm taking you through that pathway is because i am the example of a child who comes from a community that was underserved whose parents -- not all were perfect. i will never forget my math teacher in 11th grade during trigonometry. waffles not good at trigg. told me i would not make it to college and called my mother and said to her, you're wasting your time saving your money. because she'll never make it. and i became angry. because she never asked me what is going on at home? she never took time to tell me that everything would be okay. instead, she placed me in a box, and almost made my feel like, because of math, i couldn't be anything successful. but it was the teacher, my u.s. history teacher, mr. peerson, whose class i was also failing, who said to me, you seem to know a lot about u.s. history. you're really got a talking politics. but you never do my work. what is going on? and it was in that moment i literally fell in his arms because someone finally cared. it wasn't the first time. in middle school i happened when my parents separated so i knew there were teach evers who cared. but in that instant, i realized had i listened to the math teacher, i could have went on to a bad trajectory in my life and never went to college. but mr. peerson still held me accountable, even though i failed his class and had to good to summer school, i ended up at wagner college, getting a bs in nursing, which is not one of the easiest journeys to follow through. but i loved nursing before i became an educator. so, when i had my daughter, i was working for verizon, the phone company you. might say how did she get from nursing to verizon, but like many kids you think you in the what you want to do and then realize that's not it. and verizon gave me an opportunity to really figure out what i wanted to do with my life, and essentially came by looking at my daughter and realizing that the most important thing that could ever give me purpose in life is being able to touch the lives of children. and i have to trust someone with my precious gift. who is going to ensure that in our classrooms there's going to be that teacher who cares? who is going to ask the that child if they're okay and out of that i decided to become a teacher and enter the new york city teaching fellow. i ended up working for one of the most challenging schools in brooklyn. where children were dealing with parents who were on crack. parents who had abandoned them. some of them being rape raised by their grandparents. had to deal with administrators who did not believe in children. i had to deal with teachers who came just because they wanted a check and wanted summers off. but there was a covert of teachers who really cared, who showed up, who used money out of their pockets just to educate the poorest children of that neighborhood. so i was inspired by those teachers. and i was inspired by the children. i'll be honest, when i first went into hi first teachingter and generals i didn't understand the children because i came from a gifted and talented middle school so i felt like they should appreciate education. and they didn't. because they were just trying to survive. all they wanted to do is know that someone cared about them. many of them came to school just to eat. and just to get some type of shelter. from 8:00 to 3:00 p.m. so in my classroom, almost like walking into a theater. i was an actress. and every single day we performed a play. and those children were going receive love, but they also were expected to work. so if they didn't have materials, pens, pencils, bookbags, i purchased it. they used computers. they did research. and what was so amazing is one day that assistant principal ran due the hallway and entered the room and said, what's going on sneer because the kids were working together in groups to work on a project. they were learning about the declaration of independence and arguing the point of whether or not all are men created equal? and they were actually applying that to the notion of hurricane katrina and the state of new orleans. are all men created equal? let's look at how this community is similar to your community, based off of education, based off of the demographics. let's talk about what could have been done to avoid this disaster from happening. this is a seventh graders doing this work. and she said to me, they can't understand this. and i looked at her and said, why don't you sit in the classroom and ask them. and from there, i realized that there are people in positions who are hired to empower and inspire our children, but sometimes they'retive heartened, they become jaded by the process. and can't see the brilliance in our children. so, i stayed in that school for three years and then i had the opportunity of becoming a founding teacher of an all-girl school. and i took that opportunity because, as much as i touched the lives of those children, i also needed an opportunity for myself to grow, and to get the experience of what it's like to create a new school. especially for young girls of color. in the area of science, technology, engineering and math. which is often underrepresented by individuals of color. and it was a phenomenal experience. to build a culture. to develop a mission. and have a vision. to brand a school. to recruit teachers, because i was the first founding teacher. i think back to that moment and those girls gave me what i considered the greatest inspiration because i could see hope in their eyes. and so i was there for two years. and during that two years the two principals end up having their own children and left me in charge. ironically, right? so, i was responsible for pta meeting, developing programs, talking to parents, recruiting new students, recruiting teachers. i almost became the face of the school. and so i knew how to run a school, i knew how to open a school, i knew how to be present, and it was as though i was being prepared for the next chapter in my life. so an organization by new leaders had the opportunity for aspiring principals to -- part of a cohort, and i took advantage of the opportunity. and i joined this national organization and i became a resident principal in which i actually worked in a charter school. and i'll be very honest, i was so against this. because i was proud product of public schools but i also needed to have insight. because you can't criticize and judge something you have no idea what is going on, on the inside and you don't understand their vision and mission. and i will say this. i had a phenomenal mentor. i understood that they did an excellent job when it came to data. but for me what was the disconnect often time was the relationship that was built with parents, the relationship built with young men of color, and just being able to develop programs that were out of just academics, academics, academics filth lining the whole child was missing and my nursing background also made me along from the perspective of let's look at the whole person. let's look beyond the diagnoses. let's find ouch what is really going on. i took all of those experiences and i wrote my own proposal. and i found some of the best educators, partners who would come with me on this journey to open up this school, and bridges opened two years after i presented my proposal to the department of education. prior to opening up the school i was an assistant principal in the same district i am in now. and what i realized is that community of brownsville was struggling, and that someone had allowed it to happen and it was very hard for me to understand how a community in new york city, one of the richest cities in the world, could have a community that was so poor. that lacked resources. that lacked hope. and every time i read "the new york times" or i read the "know, post" or "the wall street journal," it was always something negative that was being written. but it's hard to find something positive when all you have is this narrative. when all you have are children who are failing. i was in a kindergarten to eighth grade school. i was assistant principal of the middle school. no one had ever spoken to those children about going to college or showing them what college looked like. that was hard for me to understand. when i asked the children, let's talk about going to college. i'm not going to college. why? because we don't go to college around here. you're going to go to college. you're going to have the opportunity. and they go i'm not going to college. i'm going to work around here. i'm going to go to the school up the block. that's what we do. so luckily there was a young man by the name of marlin peterson who its mentioned in the book as well. and marlin had served ten years in prison. he was with the wrong friends and made the wrong decision, and sew he had to serve ten years, and through his time incarcerated, while i was at the first school, i told him, i don't want your time there be to spent in vain. so i need you to communicate to my kids to explain to them why they should never end up in jail. because your story is more powerful than me telling them they shouldn't go there. so literally marlin would write them letters and i would read the let letters and they would write him back and we createed a correspondens program. and that was back in 2003. when marlin came out in 2008 it was december. it was 2009. i told marlin he was expected to be at my school on the friday. and i assigned him 25 young man and he came every single week, and i will tell you this. we took 25 young people who vassar college. girls and boys. out of the 25 today, 24 are in college. that should tell you the power of changing the narrative, showing the lessons of someone can make a mistake but if you just place children in the places you see them, it can change their trajectory. and that was the first time those children had ever gone to a college. because for many of them, their parents hadn't even graduated high school. so here's are the statistics of brownsville. 32% of the residents have a high school diploma. 14% have a bachelors. 3% have a masters. the average income median is $28,000 a year. living in housing develops is 11,000 a year. we have the highest incident of hiv and aids, the highest incident of teenage pregnancies. the highest incidence of any type of health recollection. hypertension, diabetes, cholesterol, and asthma. by those statistics you would say, why are you there? why do you care? but the question goes back to, how does a community end up this way? why are the no resources to support these children? so when i opened up my school, and they told me it was going to be in brownsville, already knew the numbers. but i also remembered that those children who went to vassar college, who then promised my they would good to college, were an example of what was possible. and i remember how my mother fought for me, and so if these children didn't have a parent who was going to provide the same expectations, then i would have to become their parent. so the summer i had to open up my school, i had no kids on my roster. so could you imagine after i write a proposal, after i'm inspired, there are absolutely no kids on my roster. i have to now go out in the hottest summer and walk the streets of brownsville with cupcakes, standing on corners, begging people to sign up. i would go into the housing developments. i would go to the train stations. would go to the libraries in search of kids. we're in new york city. there's kids everywhere. but i really didn't have a name. was an assistant principal put people didn't know me and they had to trust this young face. they had to trust that i wasn't a charter school and i wasn't going to take over their resources. they had to trust i was going to do right by their children, even though for the longest time they weren't being done right by many people. but because i was willing to hoe in places no one else would go, 24 parents trusted me and that's what we opened up the school with. at the end of the year we had 45 children. but the reputation had gone out that this principal is a little crazy, and she is willing to do whatever it takes to for these children. by the second year we had 124 kids. i was able to create programs for my scholars. she is me that is an empowerment program for my girls so they that know there are young -- women of color who are doing significant and outstanding things in their community. i wanted to take away the stigma that says that as women of color we argue and we fight and we tear each other down because that's what the media has imposed on everyone. i created "i matter" after the fact that we originally had my my brother's keeper" prior to the president issue made add, but the reality is that no one would show up. and i'll tell you the real truth behind it. i was asking men to be someone else's keeper. when no one ever showed up for them. and often times they felt like i was asking for a commitment. all they knew was abandonment. a lot of them, their fathers had been incarcerated, or left, or ended up murdered. so, they didn't understand that what i was asking was simply to be a positive influence to the next generation. put what realized and recognized was, they were searching for someone to say that they mattered. and because no one kept reminding them, it just was easier for them to say, i don't feel like doing that. so i started thinking about my young men because there was a one-year-old that was murdered around the corner because his father was in gangs. publish and so rival gang members came on his block and couldn't find him and started shooting up the area they live and actually hit his son. he was only one years old. so i sat with my team and i said i don't know how they know that they matter. is it because they reach home every night? because i woke up, do they know they matter? and word "matter" kept coming up. i said you know what we are going to do? we're goal to call it "i matter" because i need them to wake up every morning, even if society does not tell them because i'm going to say in this day and age, if we can't go to our churches, if we want go out and have good times with our family, if we can't travel to another country, and know that we matter, no one else can convince us unless we tell ourselves. so i need them to say it to themselves every single day. the minute we did that, literally we had 250 to 300 young men that participate in our program, every single year. and what we do is we create a space where they engage in dialogue, to talk about the concerns they have. to talk about the issues that law enforcement, because to me the most important thing for our children to do is to engage in dialogue and become advocates. i don't want them to think that those who are in positions of law and order are there to harm them. i want them to be part of the process itch want them to become politicians. i want them to become officers. i want them to be in the same spaces that often people are fearful of. so, we also have esteem program which is science, technology, engineering arts and math. the reason why i channeling i from stem to steam is children don't know how amazing art is. it's not just feathers and glue and glitter. it's about learning art history, about learning time periods and why this artist chose this medium and what culture and their location of where they alive, how that has influence on them. how beautiful is it for children to just enjoy learning. and to understand that they are creative beings. so our children learned coding, they learn drumming, they love videoingography, they create their own documentaries, they build their own web site. they're beekeepers and cultivate their own honey and sell it every one of the seventh graders has to go through an entrepreneurship program. i explained the average income is $27,000. $28,000. correction. and if you live in projects it's $11,000. i need them to know that they can make money. we live in a capitalistic society. why not teach them? to have a great idea. to develop a product. pitch it. and so they all go through this program, and they have to pitch their idea and it's like shark tank. and at the end they get a monetary prize. and then the get to compete in a citywide program. that is me preparing my scholars for the future. that's me believing in them. i don't want my children to be quote inquote saved. i want them to have access. i want them to have equity. but i spoke a lot about the scholarred. of the i didn't touch on the teachers. i have an amazing group of teachers who work for me. they don't all make it. and when i say they don't all make it, i'm a tough cookie. you've haven't noticed yesterday. have very high expectations. i outwork everyone. i work hard, though, because i remember those who worked hard for me. and i remember every single night that i expect someone to work just as hard for my daughter. so when my teachers feel look they can't push another day i will sit there with them. plan lessons. i teach classes. i'm in classes every single day. because i want them to know that i'm not here to evaluate them without knowing through evidence whattor areas of supports are. if this is not the right space, we have those conversations. i don't want anyone to feel like they are obligated to stay in this space. that they're not honored. that they don't feel like they're their very best. i think it's insane to keep a teacher in a space, to demean and degrade them. i think it's unfair for a child to have a teacher who only wants to work until 3:00 and thinks they can get the work done. i respect the unions. but good teachers, great teachers, exceptional torch torchers, understand you've can't get this done between the hours of 8:00 and 3:00. so they are asked to stay if they can. pay them. i prioritize the money, the little we have to make sure our teachers paid. don't take a dime extra more than i take. although i work probably 14, 15 hours a day, every single day. on sundays after church, i go to work. all because i like the silence of my building on sundays. but my scholars, they're there from 8:00 in the morning until 6:00 every day. on saturdays we have our mentoring program that runs from 10:00. it should end at 12:00 but they're there until 2:00 about i'm okay with that because i know anywhere a safe space. i know that every summer we offer them a comprehensive program in which my sixth graders learn about horticulture and they understand that it's important to have community gardens, and we have one connected to our school because i want them to be able to understand the importance of healthy living. so let's go around, let me teach you the importance of what you need to teach your families. let's change those behaviors that create the health risk in this community. that is important to me. my seventh graders learn social justice. and what we did was take a twist on the analysis, the historical analysis of "black lives matter." not looking at what is going on now but the civil rights movement. change our community. develop a voice. go to meetings. parents were angry. and they didn't know how to communicate themselves. and to me no one can hear you when you're yelling. but if you come with hard facts, if you come with the passion and you really want change, we can engage in a dialogue. that i can respect. so we teach our scholars that. and then for my eighth graders they prepare themselves for the algebra region because so many of them end up failing in elementary school, that they're over aim by the time they get to middle school. so the average age usually in middle school would be 11 to 13 or 14. i have scholars who are also old as 16. under that because someone held them back two or three years. but no one took the responsibility to say, the buck stops here. how do we make sure that this child its truly prepared for the next grade? so this book, shareses those stories. shares the beautiful challenges, and i call it the beautiful challenge because my brownsville brilliance, which are my scholars, my life-long learners, they need to be respected. they need to be seen not as numbers but as human beings. who have issues. who need support. who need access. this book is on behalf of so many educators who are working hard in their buildings. a lot of principals work in isolation. no one if harrows stories. all we do as administrators is get criticizedded along with our torchers, and we're reminds i of what we haven't done. but no one ever criticizes those who haven't helped us. who are in positions of helping us. no one ever criticizes the testing companies that continue to make money because they make assessments that our children simply cannot pass, and it doesn't mean those who are disadvantaged. children with special needs. in new york city alone you may have about 43% of children who are proficient. that includes those children who come from wealthy backgrounds. children in sixth grade should not be responsible for taking exams that are filled with research documents that i had to read in college. those researchers did not make their articles based off of a sixth grade comprehension test that wasn't the intention. neither was a back made in 1940. if we don't start pushing our legislators, if we don't start showing up, start asking the good questions, how can i help? or sitting next to a child and asking them, what did they learn today? or being willing to just read to a child because for many of -- show of hands how many had libraries in their homes. books in their homes. only five percent of my kid have libraries in their homes. and the libraries that are located in brownsville are in the middle of the projects. that in the middle of gang warfare. but yet they blame the children. they blame the educators. and they blame the principal. so, if you want to make a difference, if you want to be inspired. if you really want to know what guess on, and the beautiful public school system, that i'm still a proud product of, i encourage you to read the books. and i will open up the floor to questions. [applause] >> we have 20 minutes for questions. make your way to the microphone. >> hi. i'm a college student. here in washington, dc area. and i'm seriously considering working in special education after completing my studies. because of my own life experienced mat would be especially meaningful for me. what is particularly important for young people such as myself who are considering working in education to understand, it takes heartbeat the potential, the educators have to have a positive impact for their students and why. >> are you currently education major? >> i'm not currently. >> okay. so, the thing about education is a lot of focus on theory and not practice. and so what i would suggest is that if you have the opportunity of volunteering, perhaps meeting with special education teachers so that you can really understand the dynamics of what is required, when it comes to special education because what many people fail to remember is, special education is not a place. it's a service. and so for many schools special education has become this dumping ground in which those children we don't want to be bothered with, we put them in there because of their behavior issues, beau they don't learn the same with a that the other kids learn, or with my biases i want them to learn this way. we then create a narrative that says, this child needs special education, but we look at it as a place. so you want to understand from your own personal experience what were the things that worked, who were those teachers who inspired you, what didn't work and then good to a school and see if what that looks like in practice, and then as a teacher you develop your own philosophy of how you will then reply your services or your practices because i was a special education teacher. i didn't have special needs. just knew math was not something i learned very well. and so the statement -- same strappingouts use with a child with special needs is the way i had to learn. using visuals. manipulative, being able to see it from a different perspective, perhaps using computer technology to gain access, so the best thing to do is go to a school, volunteer, and speak to someone in special education. make sense? >> yes. >> excellent. thank you for your question. >> you're welcome. >> i'm also a lopez. >> all right. all right. familiar -- familiar me melia. >> plows d.c. form student, current pre-k educator, and so i was talking about how you want well-rounderred students. i want you to expand a little more about standardized testing and statewide tests like park -- i font know -- core standards and the perception that teachers are teaching to the exams rather than a well-rounded curriculum. >> so, i'm not against standards. i'm not against assessments. what my issue is it that the standardized testing says that every child should learn the same way and pass the same test, but children come in different levels, and some of our tests that we're giving children not even at the level of the grade. right? so, for those of you who don't know how it really works is the day that we administer the test is the day that we open the test. so no one gets to see it except for the testing companies. school administrators don't see it. those who create policies don't see it. it's the testing company and the classroom teacher who will then administer to the kids. so when you teach, you're spoused to always know your end result. it's called backward design. so you should know what the test looks like so this way you can actually prepare the kids as you go along. but the problem is that we don't know what we're preparing the kids for. right? and so what teachers then start to do is they get so nervous and they get overwhelmed because at the end of the day, how they're evaluated is based off of these tests so what you find is that, my ben, depending on when your test is, everything is so focused on the kids need be reading, writing, answering questions, read, writing, answering questions, they're not focused on anything else. and so what happens to the process of inquiry? what happened to quits -- kids just learning and reading from book and asking really good questions and drilling down and understanding the author's purpose. without it feeling like a gotcha on a test. they is no longer in our classrooms. it's more about, if you didn't do well on this test then you're just not good enough. and then that impact this teacher because it's the say you as a child did not do well. over making me look as though i don't know how i'm teaching. and so we need to go back to when children had time for play, had time for socialization, we need to back to the days of home economics where there was a balance between just learning for the but also learning skills. those things have been taken out of our school systems, and so the wholistic child, they're listened to, given voice in a classroom, also being able to drive some of the instruction because it's about connecting where they're at so they can access the work. does that make sense? >> your story is any story so much love. >> thank you. appreciate that. thank you for your book. i'm looking forward to reading it eye. been volunteer can mainly with younger kids in d.c. schools for often and on 24 years since my son was born, and i'm wondering what you think about volunteers in the schools if you see many examples where they're being helpful? eye i've worked mainly with younger kids but i know your children are a little bit older, but do you generally see that they are very helpful and if so in what ways and also are there program. s in new york city aimed at parents of very young children, to help prepare them for school, and if so, have you seen that any of those are effective? >> at you have multiple questions. in terms of volunteers, i think volunteers are very help. they're helpful when you know what they want to do. if not they sit around without purpose. volunteers, because our classes can consist of the teachers who student ratio can be a lot, helpful to have vons to in the classroom to help kids, whether it's with reading or writing. they find that a volunteer can be someone that they trust, they can sit and talk to. sometimes it's just good, especially with the young kids, helping with snack time, go to the bathroom. the older kids it's good for. the to see an extra body in the building. like another role model. the more the merrier, but the way to make volunteers effective is that they have to have purpose. because then they feel like their equally invested and want to come to do something that is helpful and the children see them as an asset, not just a person hanging around. another question. >> wondering about programs to prepare christian for school. >> in terms of how children are prepared, is really comes down to the community that they live in. so, if you have a more affluent neighborhood where parents really ghettoing, you have mommy and me, groups. then you fight there's a lo of parents who drive that but in many communities the papers lack the skills so it's hard for them to learn from someone who has not had the skills themself and not sag the take initiative. so a lot of programs fine themselves trying to create probables but the most disheartening thing is that often times the schools are considered places where parent are uncomfortable, especially disadvantaged communities, because they haven't had a really good interaction with the adult in the building so they tend not to come in because for me to tell you, let me support your parents, it's to say you're missing some and so i that internalize that as that they're less than, a posed to me purring into you sow can be the best you can be. >> you can't think of any good way to counter that? >> for me in i school particularly we create programs but in terms of overall throughout new york city it's based off of the leader of the school, off othe strength and numbers of the pta programs. people have to want to do it and create the initiative, and a lot of it often times falls on those who are the buildings so that's why you don't see the consistencies that happens throughout all of our public schools. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> last year in district the staff at the johnny school told their kids to prepare their goal north america school year and then took them to the steps of the lincoln memorial to speak on the steps of the memorial so day what those goals were for the school year. my nephew his wife is a teacher in albany, new york, used to be a home economics teacher. and now her job seems to be to figure out ways to identify kids that might be better for vocational education, how to track them, how to approach them on that, how to assess them. what is your take -- how to deal with the feed back if they object. what's your take on a setup like that? the real is that every child up nod going to go to college because it might not be a good fit for. the. right? everybody doesn't go to college. but for me i don't want to limit a child. so, i will take them to the colleges and place their feet on the steps of harvard, place their feet at the steps of yale, place them on the schools throughout new york city because i want them to know they have indeed options. but in addition to that in our schools, we also give them a variety of programs that they can get experiences that they wouldn't normally get anywhere else. so, for instance, we have a veterinarian program where through an organization called suzie's dogs kid goes to veterinarian hospitals gone to the k9 unit, a disability farm upstate and stayed overnight and then also do what is called lab rats and do die servings because there's a lot of kids interested in the medical field. right? and that sixth seventh and eighth graders do that. we have kids who tee sign their own clothing and create fashion lines and we want to give them as much experiences as possible because then they can then make decisions and choices. what we don't do that, then they're only going to do what they see, and when i say what they see, it's if they only know the fashion industry, i've had children who before would tell me they just want to work at mcdonald's. and there's nothing wrong with that. but if that your choice, let's talk about you becoming the manager or let's talk about you creating your own business. right? where you're creating healthy food. in your community. you're still serving your community, still making money but i don't want to limit children. that make sense? >> yes. she does that often help. >> you have to ask. i'm sure it's something that was put together. >> shift is a -- by trade so she can fool with it. >> the last question. would you mind -- we'll talk about why you put the word "brim inside by in the name of the school. >> sure. firster and most i am from brooklyn so i paid homage to the brooklyn bridge. second, i believe we're all connected to succeed, and when you think about a bridge and thing.how a bridge functions, it has to all be connected. and so if you go in our school's web site it's it literally looks like figures of people who that are connected and that is the scholars, the teachers, the parents, the community, and partners. and so for me if we all stand together, we can ensure the success of our children and the community at large. and also it's about the connection of the past, the present to the future. so, in the book, i describe how we walk over the brooklyn bridge. you would think because we live in brooklyn, that children have had experiences with the brooklyn bridge and they haven't. so, every single year my incoming signature them graders, i walk with them over the bridge, and it's to signify that what you left in the past was your fifth grade years. your present is current live at mt. bridges and as we walk over the bridges it's your pathway to your future, and the children who considerably the most challenging, the ones who are the haddest children are he most fearful children walk over the bridge because of the vibration, the fact that the cars are moving underneath them. they cling on to you. and so it's symbolic because we end up at adults holding them and reminding them, i got you. i won't let you fall. i won't let you fail. we are indeed connected to succeed. so that is where you get the bridges from. [applause] thank you. >> the become is for sale up front and you can get your become signed and don't forget to fold up your chair. [inaudible conversations] >> here's a look at current best selling nobody fiction books according to "the new york times." topping the look at the listest the look at his family's path intoed the middle class in "hillbilly allergy. "followed by" arm again decide don "by dick morris who says will lead donald trump to victory in the 2016 presidential election. next, the late neurosurgeon contemplates his mortality in "when breath becomes air." hamilton, the publish evidence script of the pulitzer price winning proper musical is next, and former secret service officer who remembers his experiencers working in the clinton white house. and historian looks at the history of class in mrs. and the political significance of poor whites from reconstruction to the new teal in, white trash. up next in grit, persistence rather than genius is a better preticketter of success. and "american heir yes" that railroads 0 the kid animalling and radicalization of patty hearst. glen beck is next in which argue that progressive ideals are eroding the foundation of the country, and in "hillingry's america the warning of the dangers of the hillary clinton presidency. that's a look at some on the current nonfiction best sellers according to the "new york times." many of these authors have appeared or will be appearing on booktv. you can watch them on the web site, become tv.org. >> and he served with ed white who was from -- when he died in the apollo one fire. >> their behind me at west point. we were on the track team, and weapon it go in the squadron, the two of us represented the squadron in nato, gunner exercises. i could shoot better than he could. >> he called you up and said i'm going amoor nat astronaut program. >> that's after he left and went to michigan -- >> i know -- >> test pilot school. he calls me up in 1962. nasa is looking for some more astronauts. they have seven. mercury seven. and ed said i've opportunity all this, i'm qualified so i'm going to apply. i said, well, i can shoot gunnery bitter than you can and i was m.i.t. and i'm working on rendevous in space, and i think that nasa would like to know how to do that. maybe i could help them out. so i applied. >> but you're pret stub b. -- stun been but you tried again. >> if at fit your don't succeed, try, try again. >> but you got accepted. third group of astronauts and, yeah, your microphone is getting wonky so just be careful. and, yes, you became an astronaut. we all know that. so, let's see. let's talk about gemini, then. so originally you almost weren't going to fly in gemini because -- >> well, helped to train the guys, mcdonald douglas built the mercury spacecraft and build it a little bigger so you can put two people in it and became the gemini spacecraft. so they had figured out different ways of rendevous and other people were pretty bolding, when you lift off and go straight toward them, and neither of these were very good. but mine was better. we know the deal tails but it was a fighter pilot type run day view, and i worked training -- rendevous. so i worked train something of them so i went the boss, and said i would like to really fly in one of this gemini flights. to rendevous. he said nothing. the list comes out and, hmm, jim lovele and i are on the backup crew for gemini 10. okay. now, when that flies they have a crew for 11 and 12, so the backup crew becomes the prime crew on 13, but there wasn't any 13. first called it a deadhead assignment. woe is me. >> hold on, though. so, doesn't the first train underwater the simulate knew truly boy i, my backyard neighbor charlie bassett, really top notch test pilot in our class, he was on the prime crew for gemini 9 in was a snowstorm in st. lou and that's didn't quite make the turn and they cracked into he hangar where the spacecraft was. ironically both were killed to sheets the primary crew. the backup crew takes over. now, the prime -- the crew who is going tofully on gemini 9 doesn't have a backup crew but here's lovell and al -- aldrin. so we became the backup true so there's a crew for 10, and 11 and we'll fly on the last one. that the way things happened sometimes. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> conservative activist phyllis schlafly passed a. at the age of 29. the found ore of the eagle forum, she also authored over 25 books. on topics that range from america's new nuclear strategy and the hallway of feminist movement to child care and education, the supreme court, abortion, and religious freedom. her final book, published last week, and co-authored with ed martin and brett decker lay outs conservative case for donald trump as president. phyllis schlafly has been on booktv several times to talk about her books. her she is in 2003 on our depth depth -- "in depth" program, discussing the lease of heir first book, "i" a choice, not an echo ." >> kennedy was asass niced in late november '63 and i was the president of the illinois federation of women and i had a whole series of run speeches scheduled in december, and it just seemed inappropriate to give those standard antidemocratic party speech. so i worked up a new speech called "how political conventions are stolen," starting the first week in december of 1963. and then i gave that speech all january and february. and it told the story of how the rockefeller establishment had outmaneuvered the conservatives and given the domination to -- like thomas dewey, and by match i realized i could put in a book and influence the convention. so it what pa whirl wind year. >> when did you write it. >> i wrote it on my royal standard type writer at night, at home, and then of course i self-published it. if you go to a publisher going to take them two years to get their act together and we needed it in '64. >> what is -- >> that's the little publisher i set up to produce this book. and so i sent it off to printer in march, and 25,000 copies arrived at my garage on april 40th, and i type out a one-page letter that said, dear friend. please read this book today and then buy enough copies to send to your delegates to the 1964 republican national convention. and i typed on my type writer, type with stencil and had a mimeograph machine in my basement and i put the citizen sill on the -- stencil on theground thing. sent 100 letters out the only advertising i ever did, and one alert was read by a friend in california, who called up and said, i read it, i'm going to a convention this week yet, united republicans for california, and air freight dozen copies so i took them down to the airport and sent them there be had statewide traction in california, and the california primary was in the first week in june, and we sold over a half million copies between the first of may and the first of june in california. ...