If we as teachers do not start to see what is going on around us then we will lose. It is time to open our eyes and fight back.
http://southbronxschool.blogspot.com/2010/12/apathy-and-ignorance-at-doe.htmlMany years ago I traveled to Albany to hand in paper work at the state ed. department. This was back in the day when the offices were in the same building as the New York State Museum. With such important paper work I felt that it was better to hand it off to a person and it also expedited the time it got filed. I still do it if I have to, and besides I look for any excuse to go to Albany.
So this one time, in fact my first time there, a gentleman came out to greet me. He was a grumpy, cranky man. In all probability he was sitting behind a desk for too many years with too big a case load and no appreciation. As I handed him my paperwork he noticed something amiss. He explained what I needed to do and I promptly rectified it. As I re-handed him back my paperwork he proclaimed, "Teachers are the stupidest people out there." Being that I wanted him on my side and to do what I needed of him I agreed with him.
Which brings me to 2010. I was having a conversation with a teacher last week inquiring if this teacher still reads my blog. The teacher told me that she no longer reads it because it has gone all "political." I guess the drama of when I was reporting about the goings on in my school was the only thing palatable to her, but to each their own.
I started to explain of the seismic shift going on, that she does need to keep up with the political stuff. If not here on my blog, but other blogs, the newspapers, or forms of media. "What is happening out there can happen to you," I told her. The answer I received from her was, "What do you mean?"