Week 14: Emily Dickinson

December 6, 2010:  Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place. 

Emily Dickinson is one of our country’s most beloved poets.    She was born this week in 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts.  Here’s one of her most famous poems:

I'm nobody, who are you?

Are you nobody too?

There's a pair of us, don't tell!

They'd banish us, you know!

How dreary to be somebody!

How public like a frog,

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

Dickinson wrote over 1800 poems, but did you know that almost all of them remained hidden in her room until after she died?  Dickinson struggled throughout her life with shyness and sometimes depression.  As an adult she spent most of her time inside her home.  Neighbors even thought she was strange.  And yet she was an individual with a talent and expressive vision that was far ahead of the times. 

As we celebrate the lovely poems of Emily Dickinson today, let’s each remember to do our part to make our school a place where everyone feels welcome to be who they are.

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as Amherst, Massachusetts to find diversity.  There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school.  Find one today!