Bishop Maginn High School has a new Bishop Maginn Amazon Wish List, it is important, it is short, it is inexpensive – 8 used textbook copies of a book called American Government and two gallons of Acryllic Paint so the art class can paint their increasingly famous murals in the school and in their city.
The used book run from $4 to $9 and the two gallons of paint cost $18 dollars each and change.
The school has no funds to buy these things, without us, no murals, no government textbooks.
This photo is of a brilliant Vietnamese artist and Bishop Maginn student named Thang Trinh, he is from Ho Chi Minh city, he painted the mural he is holding for the Albany College of Pharmacy, which has hired professional artists to paint it in the lobby of their school.
His mural is titled Children Of Peace.
Thang, who hopes to be a civil engineer, triggered a mural craze among the school’s artists.
Thang and Sue Silverlstein’s Art Class want to paint additional murals in their school (drab and lifeless walls and hallways) and on walls and other buildings who are interested.
To do this, they need five gallons of Acrylic Paint. Shortly after the new Wish List was posted, three gallons were purchased, there are only two colors left, they each cost less than $19.
The Wish List also includes a request for 10 used copies of a well-known textbook called American Government, the books have been requested by Dr. John Harden, the Humanities Teacher at Bishop Maginn.
As of 8 p.m., there were six copies of the book left on the list.
New textbooks are prohibitively expensive – they cost up to $110 – so Dr. Harden insists that we buy used copies of the American Government, they range from $6 to $8 for those marked “very good” or “good” condition.
There are precious few new textbooks at Bishop Maginn. (In a couple of weeks, I’ve been asked to support a Wish List for some used Spanish textbooks for the Spanish class.)
Dr. Harden (above) asked for 12, six have already been sold.
You can find the used books here. Just click on the button that says “See All Buying Options.”
I bought two books that were in very good condition.
If you need it for Amazon, the shipping address for the books or paint for Bishop Maginn is John Harden, Bishop Maginn High School, 75 Park Avenue, Albany, N.Y., 12201.
I love this list. It is small yet meaningful.
For very little money, we can bring joy to the dedicated artists in Sue Silverstein’s class and the lucky recipients of their murals. We cal also help Dr. Harden continue his hard work to help his students understand America and how it is supposed to work.
This sounds like a ridiculous school. They seriously think that it’s ok to charge $7,000 a year for tuition and not offer TEXTBOOKS? What are they teaching there? This is supposedly an alternative to the (free, highly regarded academically) Albany public schools? Sheesh! SMH
You sound like a petty jerk, Ron, and this is a ridiculous message. What are you doing here?
Go over to Twitter or Fox News or CNN and troll somebody else. Hardly anyone can afford to pay $7,000 at Bishop Maginn and they do offer textbooks, of course, they just don’t have a lot of extra money, like 80 percent of the schools in America. Maybe Google “schools” in-between nasty e-mails. Here, a dedicated teacher wants to do more, and you jeer at that. Yuk. Every student at Bishop Maginn who wants to go to college goes, quite often on a full scholarship.
Do you really think the public schools in Albany have money to spend?
If so, why am I raising class trip money for kids at Hackett Junior High who haven’t been on a class trip in their lives because the schools can’t afford to hire busses? Have you been to their classes with 30 to 40 kids?
Have you seen the police cars parked outside all day, or heard the stories about chronic violence in the city’s public school system? Maybe you want to turn off the computer and go talk to a teacher or two, as I do quite often ( raise money for the public schools also). Like the teachers at Bishop Maginn, they are heroic and dedicated.
I know I should just trash junk messages like yours, they are cheap and easy to write, but I have absolutely no respect for people like you who sent messages gassing off about things they know absolutely nothing about. Please go away, this is not the place for you. jk
https://www.bedlamfarm.com/2019/10/31/supporting-the-mural-mob-at-bishop-maginn/
This is my best answer to you Ron, the Mural Mob, and I suspect it’s pointless to discuss this with you further. Your values are not mine, which is your right. So I’m moving on.
The measure of a good school for me is not how many kids go to Harvard or Stamford, but whether or no they offer a safe and nourishing environment in which to learn and grow. Your idea would be to shut down the vast majority of schools in America, many of which have less money and support even than Bishop Maginn. I guess they are all ridiculous, those teachers who spend their own money to buy school supplies.
Just do your homework since you seem so obsessed with academic achievement. It’s not as easy as spitting out cheap messages online, but it’s valuable sometimes.
I’ve never met a refugee kid at BM who wants to go to Harvard, they just want good jobs to help their families and permit them to acclimate to America. This is what almost every student at Bishop Maginn gets, especially from families can’t afford to pay much in tuition and who have lost everything. Their graduates are happy and successful, I’ve met many of them.
In your SAT world, the reality of urban education makes the schools ridiculous. I know there are wonderful students in public schools – that’s where I went – and I know there are many wonderful teachers there. They would laugh you out of the room hearing your fantasy about the problem-less and idyllic Albany Public School system. Do you know their dropout rate? It might inspire you to be less lazy in your opinions.
I’m not here to knock them, like Bishop Maginn, they do the best with what they have. I’ve raised a lot of money for the teachers and helped a dozen students there get into private schools, BM is only one of them. What they have is far too little to be the academic paradise you have invented with your rank elitism.
It would be useful for you to speak to the girl from Thailand who was beaten up so badly at Albany High School that she had to be hospitalized for two days this year. She is at Bishop Maginn, very happy, very welcome, very safe. Or the young boy whose hair was set on fire at Albany High because he is from Myanmar and speaks halting English.
Or the young woman in my writing class who was tortured and isolated because she was the only girl in the school who spoke Arabic. The ESL teachers working in Albany Schools call me all the time to beg me to help get their overwhelmed and neglected refugee students into Bishop Maginn. None of them have enough money for full tuition, the school takes them and lets them stay.
The Arabic child was from Syria. She came home crying every night because she couldn’t learn English fast enough to speak up for herself against the bullies and taunts or ask for help.
She knows English now, free to learn rather than hide and fight, she has become a straight-A student.
Or the autistic boy who left a middle school in Albany because the class size was nearly 40 students and he found the chaos frightening, he was insulted and taunted daily. He got a standing ovation in his class at bishop Maginn when he talked about his autism. He is very happy there, and very safe. Your contempt, elitism, and arrogance are offensive to me, and yes, I would like you to go away.
If you persist in denigrating a place you know nothing about as “ridiculous”, I will happily make that happen. It’s my site, and I don’t want people like you on it. I am happy to tell people who post hateful messages to go away, I do it all the time. That’s my contribution to civility and decency.
And P.S. Albany taxpayers might challenge your idea that the public schools are free. In America, no education is free, and taxes in Albany, as it most urban areas, are high. The teachers do amazing work with what they have. They will, to a one, tell you it is not enough. And they are right.
Best of luck to you. I am thankful you inspired me to focus on what I love so much about this school, and it’s time to move on. There are more important things in my life than your academic bigotry.
Your response to criticism is always “go away.” If you bother to check, you would see that Albany High offers, among other things, an excellent AP Government course, complete with textbooks and primary source material that doesn’t need to be scavenged off Amazon. It also offers Spanish with textbooks, as well as many other languages. I feel very sorry for these Bishop Maginn kids, who are obviously receiving a terrible education. They’d be completely unprepared to survive in any halfway decent university.
A really great reply, Jon. You managed not to shout but to sit back and put together a thoughtful reply, chock full of information.
I tend to think “don’t reply” to the foolish and ignorant but in this case you saw the necessity and rose to the challenge. This was not a waste of your time but a first rate response that was needed.
I hope you will always take the time to do this when it is crying out for an answer.
With gratitude that you are out here,
Thanks Erika, people get upset with me when I reply sometimes, but I am learning to wait a few hours and not write in anger, although this ignorant snobbery really did make me angry. Bishop Maginn joins the ranks of underfunded schools all over the country, there are a million stories about this. What’s different here is that they are offering a safe haven that few private schools would. I helped a refugee student from the public schools get into the Albany Academy, she couldn’t learn there and her public school teacher pleaded with me to get her out of there, the class was too big and chaotic. She got a $21,000 scholarship we had to raise another $20,000 or so to keep her there…
The same teacher pleaded with me to get a bright refugee student (overwhelmed with language and social issues) into Bishop Maginn and the school let him in without any payment. About half of their students are there unable to pay full tuition, including minority kids from inner-city Albany who couldn’t learn in the public school system or found it frightening or dangerous.
The answer is not to knock the public schools or Bishop Maginn, but to help them do what they want to do. Getting everyone into Harvard or the “high quality” schools our friend is going on about is not the answer or an option for the vast majority of students. I appreciate your comments, I hope I will always stand up to people like that.
Bishop Maginn is a wonderful place struggling valiantly to help needy and vulnerable children. They deserve all the praise and support in the world, not cheap shots from people hiding behind their computers. I’m standing with them.
To Ron N.
I am sure you are still reading here. My suggestion to you is contact your local public school and find out what they need. Circulate the lust among your friends and family and see what can be contributed.
My husband and I, although retired and not at all well off, do help both a local charity and an international one. Every penny helps so put a little of your money and concern to work and don’t waste time criticizing.
Sorry for misprint it should be LIST not lust.
Everyone here have a really good and fruitful day