Cynthia Milone
Words from author, Cynthia Milone,
"It was Dr. Martin Luther King who said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is “What are you doing for others?” I, Cynthia Milone live my life always with that question in mind. In fact, I could not think of a better profession to seize the opportunity to reply to this question and make a difference in the world, than being a teacher. I have been a science teacher for 7th graders for 22 years. Why do I teach science? Science is the ideal subject to teach mostly because it does not provide or claim to have all the answers, in fact through discovery learning one has more questions. Through science, I engage and motivate young students to ask questions, make mistakes, and discover phenomena through their struggles. I am a teacher who teaches students how to think rather than what to think by building relationships with my students.
My life has been a gift up to this point and I‘ve been blessed beyond my wildest imagination. I am a proud wife to my husband, Mark and mom of 3 boys, Tony, Sam and Alex. I never take these blessings lightly. Still, I would always ponder if I could do more in my life to help others. I wanted to identify my purpose to create a meaningful life. My answer came in a tragic event of my son, Sam who attempted suicide due to being a victim of cyber-bullying. As a parent, all I wanted to do was to take his pain away and fix it but Sam knew that only he could fix it. And he is doing just that. Being alongside Sam throughout his journey of becoming a victor, I discovered what I was meant to do - to search for a solution to the bullying epidemic.
Four years ago, I started an Eagles Rise Up Blog at my school and shared my son’s story of hope. The goal of the blog is to provide a safe place for all students to discuss bullying situations, and to spread kindness. The blog was so successful that students are kinder to each other, speak up with greater frequency, and are more self-aware of how their actions impact others. To sustain the mission, The Eagles Rise Up student leaders under my guidance, embarked on a challenge to defeat bullying. From this challenge, a book was born, with every chapter penned by a student author.
The student authors recognized that in order to defeat bullying, you first need to fully understand the players in the bullying scenario. That is why You Are Not Invisible has fictional stories written through the lens of the bully, bystander, or the victim. Each inspiring story, poem, and picture tells the reader about the possibility for change, faith, hope, and of better times ahead. Through each story, the student authors hoped that soon the bystander becomes the up – stander, the victim transforms into a victor, and a bully matures into a protector and a promoter.
As you can see life threw me a curve ball and my son, Sam continues to be my inspiration that his story of hope can be anyone’s story. I discovered my purpose and I will do whatever it takes to stomp out bullying. Our book is available on Amazon and Lulu.com.
Purchase, You Are Not Invisible
Sticking with the baseball theme life threw me a change up, when I needed one the most. Sometimes in life we find a person who takes a very special place in our hearts. They say friends are like second family, and that’s most certainly true for me when I met Melanie. Since Melanie and I share the same passion, we decided to be coauthors of our new book, The Bright Side, which reminds all of us, no matter our age, we can be the best versions of ourselves."
Purchase, The Bright Side
