As I’ve written about the Avery Doninger case, I always come back to what I’ve been referring to as the teachable moments of the case. Avery Doninger used a derogatory term when she was venting in a blog entry at home one night and has been punished by the school for what she did at home on her own time. A lot has been written since about this, and, I imagine, will continue to be written, yet too little of it is focused on the teachable moments.

The contrast was driven home to me yesterday at the Poets and Writers for Avery fundraiser. Avery told me that she has been invited to speak to yet another school about the case, and I told her about some of my speaking engagements as well. Between us, we’ve been invited to speak to high schools and colleges in Connecticut and Massachusetts on how this case relates to topic from politics to English and anthropology. The contrast between how these other schools approach Avery’s blog post and how Lewis S Mills High School is striking.

Yet learning moments go beyond traditional schools. We are all students in this school of life and we all have so much more to learn. For me, that was part of the wonder of Poets and Writers for Avery. It took the teachable moment beyond the schoolhouse gates and beyond the core issue of freedom of speech.

You see it is finding our voices and exercising our freedom of speech that makes us truly alive and connects us with the people around us. The poets and writers that attended yesterday’s fundraiser seemed to understand that better than just about any reporter or blogger I’ve spoken with about the case.

Wally Lamb spoke about the other Connecticut, the Connecticut he grew up in. Not the gold coast of Fairfield County where fathers commute into New York City while their children study at private schools and then they all cavort at country clubs on the weekends. He spoke about the Connecticut he grew up in, of people struggling to get by. He spoke about growing up in the shadows of the Norwich State Hospital, which in 1950 housed 2,799 mentally ill patients.

After Wally finished speaking, Avery came up and gave him a great hug.

Christine Palm spoke of the lost voice of foghorns along the coast and her experience at an event in Hartford where Cezar Chavez spoke and later danced with volunteers. Chavez, she said, loved to dance, and it wasn’t something you typically found in the accounts of the day.

Jon Andersen spoke about his experiences as a teacher, just as Wally Lamb touched on his teaching experience and Amy Ma spoke about her studies to become a teacher. Jon spoke about trying to dismantle the walls that exist between a student and the student’s voice, erected by fearful administrators, fearful teachers and fearful parents.

Ron Winter spoke about the lessons he learned as a marine in Vietnam and Ravi Shankar talked about being the Indian kid that others picked on, and about learning the importance of protecting freedom of speech as he savored a book on a train through Europe, a book that his traveling companion’s father had been arrested for owning.

I sat there in the corner, taking notes and pictures and thought about my own story, growing up poor in New England, aspiring to be a writer, but always being thwarted by the need to make a living. I thought of the difficult time of my divorce and a friend urging me to read Wally Lamb’s “I know this much is true”.

When Christine Palm spoke about dancing with Cezar Chavez, she described the group as “some well meaning hopeful strangers”. For me, Poets and Writers for Avery was a gathering of well meaning hopeful strangers. Jon Andersen said that he hoped the afternoon would be a catalytic event for many of us. I share that hope to.

I’ve often spoken about the importance of buying locally. We get much of our produce from a farm a few towns over. Our fruit and meat comes from orchards and farms around the state. Yet we are so much more than just what we eat. We are what we do, how we fight for our freedoms. We are how we communicate and the stories we tell.

So, I echo Jon Andersen’s desire that yesterday afternoon might be a catalytic event for all of us, a group of well meaning hopeful strangers. I hope that we learn to savor not only the locally grown foods, but the locally grown voices, that Avery’s voice, my voice, all our voices may grown stronger, clearer, more nuanced and more compassionate.

To return to the legalese for a moment, that is where the true pedagogical interests should be.