R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
Today, I did something I have never in my life done before.
Oh! I've talked about it ... I've talked about it a lot to my students.
I have told countless students in my career that their voices are important. They have important things to say, and the only way to make themselves heard is to use those voices.
Only, I never really practiced what I preached.
To be honest with you, I never really thought my voice was loud enough for someone to hear. Nor did I feel like any one wanted to hear my voice. So, I never really used it.
I mean, I USED my voice. Don't get me wrong. I use my voice daily! And much of what I have to say is nothing of any consequence. But for the important things ... the things that really mattered, I assumed my child of the late 80s, early 90s attitude: "Eh. No one cares anyway."
Except they do! Except I DO!
When our governor started calling teachers names like "thug-like," "ill-informed," "whiny," and people who were "asking for more than their fair share," I had had it.
For the great majority of my 16-year career, I've have put up with a lot of crap from people who think my job is a cake walk. In their minds, I work only nine months out of a year, get this incredible summer break AND bonus Fall and Spring Breaks, leave my classroom at 3 p.m. every day, and have someone else pay for everything that I do in my classroom. A dummy could do my job.
In reality, I get six weeks in the summer and much of that is spent planning for the coming year. Not to mention, I am called in DURING my vacation for school meetings as well as home visits. My Fall and Spring breaks are used for bringing students who are not mastering standards up to mastery with half or full day classes with lessons designed to help them move up.
In reality, I do NOT leave my classroom at 3 p.m. everyday. If I am lucky, I leave at 4 p.m., and I STILL take work home to do whilst I get my dinner around, get lunch for the next day around, attempt to get one load of laundry done, and do other domestic duties that have to be done in addition to my job.
In reality, I pay for A LOT of what you see in my classroom. The $200 tax credit I, as a teacher, receive each year doesn't come close to what I spend to make sure students are learning.
This year, our governor decided to make good on a campaign promise ... he was going to fix the pension problem that was created some 12 years ago, when the legislators of our fine Commonwealth decided to borrow money from the pension. Money we have all been paying into...MONEY FROM OUR PAY. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but I was raised that if you take money that doesn't belong to you, that is stealing. So, I totally agreed with the governor that something needed to be done to rectify the situation.
What he did, I DID NOT agree with.
Rather than find funding for the pension, he proposed actually TAKING MONEY FROM US. OUR PENSION. The same one we have been using OUR OWN MONEY TO FUND. Yeah, nope! That wasn't going to fly.
Teachers organized and began rallying. And the general assembly was nervous, as they should be. After all, the great majority of them were riding on the shirt tails of the governor on this, if it passed, they were sure to be handed moving boxes to pack up. They weren't coming back for another term.
In a last ditch effort, the House made a dirty back door deal, passed it, and sent it on to the Senate, which also passed it. While our pensions are intact, they have taken some things out that, for me, makes a HUGE difference to the take home I will have at retirement. Cue me gathering those moving boxes!
Teachers were upset, but that wasn't even the half of it.
Now, the general assembly needed to go about the business of balancing the budget, and to do that (as well as fund some of the hair-brained schemes of the governor), they were going to again take from education.
Charter schools were also our governor's baby. He promised he would get those passed, and he did. But how to fund them. Well, they are private schools, so they should be funded privately. Our governor didn't buy that argument. Nope. He wanted to divert education funds from PUBLIC SCHOOLS to CHARTER SCHOOLS! Umm, not only is this highly unethical, I need to start questioning what, exactly, the governor is attempting to do here. Because it seems like we are attempting to keep one class down while building another class up ... what year is this again?!?!?
As if the diverting of funds shenanigans weren't enough, he further proposed tax cuts to those that chose to send kids to a private school. ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?? Having been an alum of a private, Christian education, I can attest to the monetary sacrifice it takes to choose such an option. However, it was my parents' CHOICE. They had other options, but they chose this one.
Y'all, I just couldn't keep quiet anymore. I just couldn't sit back and watch other people make my opinions known for me. I wasn't going to be a bandwagon jumper either, but dang it! THIS WAS THE LAST STRAW. Respect me. Respect my expertise, and respect the fact that I am not doing this for any sort of lavish vacation or incredibly cushy hours or a fabulous paycheck. I am doing this job because I LOVE teaching, and I LOVE teaching my kids! So, please, respect my ability to understand when you, big government, are being mean and nasty and demeaning and undermining and sneaky, and RESPECT my right, under our constitution, to say something about it.
So, I said something about it. I gathered peaceably with a few THOUSAND of my colleagues from across the Commonwealth of Kentucky to protest the lack of respect for this job that molds and shapes the rest of the job holders of this WORLD, including the Senators and House of Representatives currently sitting in those chairs up on the hill.
And it wasn't just teachers there saying something! It was pipe fitters and plumbers. It was police officers, fire fighters, and EMTs. It was the Teamsters, for heaven's sake!
There were superintendents (mine was there!) rallying. There were principals rallying. There were parents there rallying, and there were students there rallying!
And it's not just Kentucky. It's West Virginia. It's Arizona. It's Oklahoma. It's a whole movement, and I cannot tell you how proud I was today to be standing with these men and women. Standing in that sea of humanity, I was part of democracy playing out, and it was powerful and empowering.
#120strong #istandwithteachers
Oh! I've talked about it ... I've talked about it a lot to my students.
I have told countless students in my career that their voices are important. They have important things to say, and the only way to make themselves heard is to use those voices.
Only, I never really practiced what I preached.
To be honest with you, I never really thought my voice was loud enough for someone to hear. Nor did I feel like any one wanted to hear my voice. So, I never really used it.
I mean, I USED my voice. Don't get me wrong. I use my voice daily! And much of what I have to say is nothing of any consequence. But for the important things ... the things that really mattered, I assumed my child of the late 80s, early 90s attitude: "Eh. No one cares anyway."
Except they do! Except I DO!
When our governor started calling teachers names like "thug-like," "ill-informed," "whiny," and people who were "asking for more than their fair share," I had had it.
For the great majority of my 16-year career, I've have put up with a lot of crap from people who think my job is a cake walk. In their minds, I work only nine months out of a year, get this incredible summer break AND bonus Fall and Spring Breaks, leave my classroom at 3 p.m. every day, and have someone else pay for everything that I do in my classroom. A dummy could do my job.
In reality, I get six weeks in the summer and much of that is spent planning for the coming year. Not to mention, I am called in DURING my vacation for school meetings as well as home visits. My Fall and Spring breaks are used for bringing students who are not mastering standards up to mastery with half or full day classes with lessons designed to help them move up.
In reality, I do NOT leave my classroom at 3 p.m. everyday. If I am lucky, I leave at 4 p.m., and I STILL take work home to do whilst I get my dinner around, get lunch for the next day around, attempt to get one load of laundry done, and do other domestic duties that have to be done in addition to my job.
In reality, I pay for A LOT of what you see in my classroom. The $200 tax credit I, as a teacher, receive each year doesn't come close to what I spend to make sure students are learning.
This year, our governor decided to make good on a campaign promise ... he was going to fix the pension problem that was created some 12 years ago, when the legislators of our fine Commonwealth decided to borrow money from the pension. Money we have all been paying into...MONEY FROM OUR PAY. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but I was raised that if you take money that doesn't belong to you, that is stealing. So, I totally agreed with the governor that something needed to be done to rectify the situation.
What he did, I DID NOT agree with.
Rather than find funding for the pension, he proposed actually TAKING MONEY FROM US. OUR PENSION. The same one we have been using OUR OWN MONEY TO FUND. Yeah, nope! That wasn't going to fly.
Teachers organized and began rallying. And the general assembly was nervous, as they should be. After all, the great majority of them were riding on the shirt tails of the governor on this, if it passed, they were sure to be handed moving boxes to pack up. They weren't coming back for another term.
In a last ditch effort, the House made a dirty back door deal, passed it, and sent it on to the Senate, which also passed it. While our pensions are intact, they have taken some things out that, for me, makes a HUGE difference to the take home I will have at retirement. Cue me gathering those moving boxes!
Teachers were upset, but that wasn't even the half of it.
Now, the general assembly needed to go about the business of balancing the budget, and to do that (as well as fund some of the hair-brained schemes of the governor), they were going to again take from education.
Charter schools were also our governor's baby. He promised he would get those passed, and he did. But how to fund them. Well, they are private schools, so they should be funded privately. Our governor didn't buy that argument. Nope. He wanted to divert education funds from PUBLIC SCHOOLS to CHARTER SCHOOLS! Umm, not only is this highly unethical, I need to start questioning what, exactly, the governor is attempting to do here. Because it seems like we are attempting to keep one class down while building another class up ... what year is this again?!?!?
As if the diverting of funds shenanigans weren't enough, he further proposed tax cuts to those that chose to send kids to a private school. ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?? Having been an alum of a private, Christian education, I can attest to the monetary sacrifice it takes to choose such an option. However, it was my parents' CHOICE. They had other options, but they chose this one.
Y'all, I just couldn't keep quiet anymore. I just couldn't sit back and watch other people make my opinions known for me. I wasn't going to be a bandwagon jumper either, but dang it! THIS WAS THE LAST STRAW. Respect me. Respect my expertise, and respect the fact that I am not doing this for any sort of lavish vacation or incredibly cushy hours or a fabulous paycheck. I am doing this job because I LOVE teaching, and I LOVE teaching my kids! So, please, respect my ability to understand when you, big government, are being mean and nasty and demeaning and undermining and sneaky, and RESPECT my right, under our constitution, to say something about it.
So, I said something about it. I gathered peaceably with a few THOUSAND of my colleagues from across the Commonwealth of Kentucky to protest the lack of respect for this job that molds and shapes the rest of the job holders of this WORLD, including the Senators and House of Representatives currently sitting in those chairs up on the hill.
And it wasn't just teachers there saying something! It was pipe fitters and plumbers. It was police officers, fire fighters, and EMTs. It was the Teamsters, for heaven's sake!
There were superintendents (mine was there!) rallying. There were principals rallying. There were parents there rallying, and there were students there rallying!
And it's not just Kentucky. It's West Virginia. It's Arizona. It's Oklahoma. It's a whole movement, and I cannot tell you how proud I was today to be standing with these men and women. Standing in that sea of humanity, I was part of democracy playing out, and it was powerful and empowering.
#120strong #istandwithteachers
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