While at a thrift store recently I passed by a teacher's companion about October. It was a thick book filled with dozens of pages of creative ideas and activities for teaching about this colorful month. I can still remember learning about the seasons in elementary school. Our teachers would adorn the walls with decorations representing each month. I'd head home after school, ready to proudly display my collage of leaves we'd collected outside and glued to the paper. I couldn't imagine a day in class that didn't include some creative learning activities.

As I've spent the last decade traveling to and living in countries where the majority of children do not share the same privileges I had growing up, I've realized that one of the main things I've taken for granted throughout my life is my education. And growing up in a town with a good public school system, my education was essentially free. For 13 years I was able to attend great schools, with trained and devoted teachers, learning everything from geometry to physics, poetry to French, and even clay and ceramics. For free. While I mostly enjoyed school, I know I had my "But I don't want to go to school, Mommy" days. I had no idea what a privilege my education was.

Let's consider Haiti. You can google "Haiti education statistics" and find a list of sad figures:

• 50% of children are not enrolled in primary school
• Less than 1/3 of those children will reach the fifth grade
• 1/3 of girls over the age of 6 never attend school
• More than 50% of children enrolled in school are overage
• Less than 5% of students graduate high school (I've seen statistics as low as 2%)