There are two stories to tell in Chester Upland School District in Pennsylvania. One is a heroic story worthy of a book or movie deal. There are plenty of movies about the lone teacher crusader who against all odds and against the establishment brings students out of the darkness of ignorance and into the light of the power of their own futures.
I’m a sucker for those movies. But I have a love-hate relationship with them because inevitably, in order to lionize the hero, they have to make all the other teachers in the school less than heroes. They have to make the principal a bully. Movies need a good guy to cheer for and bad guys to boo over. Así es la vida. That’s the way it goes.
Chester Upland, a poor and predominantly minority district, is a long way from Hollywood, but it does have a star in .
I’m at the annual . We are a strange but noble people. We are passionate. We wear T-shirts and buttons that say funny things. We are generous. We are sensitive and kind and a little crazy. We are very smart. We care about someone else’s child.
These teachers and support professionals and college professors and librarians and principals and counselors and school nurses and anyone and everyone who touches the life of a student from preschool to graduate school have been duly elected and certified to represent the NEA members back home who sent them here to be their voice.
We sit in a huge cavernous hall with 40 microphones and 22 big screen monitors and positions and actions of the NEA focused around a mission to prepare each and every blessed student to succeed in an increasingly diverse and interconnected world - A world that needs them all to be more than accomplished test-takers.
It needs them to be thinkers and doers; engaged in our civil and cultural society; connected to others in ways we could not have imagined possible when I began teaching 4th graders thirty-one years ago.
I hardly ever met any movie stars in my 6th grade at Orchard Elementary in West Valley City, Utah where I taught a generation of girls and boys. But I saw movie stars and TV stars, directors and script writers the other night at a function sponsored by the , the and . Seriously.
And the topic was very serious. It would have to be to bring together such a diverse group. The topic: Keeping kids safe from bullies. As I was explaining the tremendous interest educators were getting on this issue, a fairly jaded friend of mine remarked that this was simply the “fashionable” cause of the moment.
She’s wrong. I know she’s wrong because I talked to the writer of a new film the NEA is helping to promote called, “That’s What I Am”.
I was diagnosed several years ago as humility challenged. I’m on medication. It’s not working. I still think I’m incredible.
I make it my business to be incredible. It’s the natural outcome of lessons from my father. He would tell us, “Do more than they asked. Do it better than they expected. You’ll never get fired. They’ll fire your boss before they fire you.”
I was thinking about my Pa in these days of turmoil and attack from politicians against educators and our collective voice, our unions and associations. When Pa retired from the Army, he got a job with the FAA and became a shop steward in his union – a public sector union. He believed in his responsibility to help his union. He believed in his responsibility to be an incredible worker. This was his union work ethic.
I am also thinking of my Pa because he was a man who worked with his hands as a mechanic. He never went to college. He never even finished high school. He was a sponge that learned by watching others and trial and error and volunteering for every training course the Army offered until he was a master of electronics and engines. He fixed things. He had a lot in common with our Education Support Professionals. The custodians and technicians and cooks and teaching assistants and bus drivers who work with our students.
My National Education Association and our state and local affiliates are often referred to in the press as the “teachers’ union”. But everyone who works in our public schools is eligible to be a member. Half a million of our members are Education Support Professionals. We couldn’t run our schools for a day without them. I know this, because I began my career in schools as an Education Support Professional. Specifically, a Lunch Lady. (more…)
