Not Teach for America. We are teachers for life

These are my Monday/Wednesday teachers they will provide 25,000 dollars of free tutoring to struggling readers and writers from 1/30 to the first week of May. These are my heroes. They are taking the path I took many years ago, and that inspires me. Dr. Valerie's Tuesday/Thursday teachers will provide 25,000 dollars of free tutoring as well.

Next Monday our Spring Reading Program for children begins again at our CCSU Literacy Center. We have been preparing for the children for two weeks. We have called our parents saying salutations we are your child's new teacher this spring semester. We are excited and we are ready. We have written our own Literacy Center Standards that put empathy, love, hope, and humanity at the heart of what we do.

We are already certified teachers working in public schools. We have prepared for this practicum for two years. We are not some fly by Teach For America 5 weeks and we are ready program. We are America's teach for life teachers.

Here are our standards for this spring. Not cut off scores or benchmarks, but something much more meaningful.

CCSU Literacy Center Standards 
1. The Whole Child matters here. 
2. We see the child not the test score
3. Everyone has the ability to learn and grow.
4. Try your best, your best matters here.
5. Challenge your brain. 
6. Everyone is a lifelong learner.
7. Everyone is unique. 
8. Work hard today, and you'll be smarter tomorrow.
9. Teamwork matters here.
10. Never give up, and don't forget to have fun. 
11. Parent voices matter here.
12. Student voices matter here. 
13. No one is alone here.
14. Students are our shinning stars here.

Blessed by teachers,
Jesse The Walking Turner

Sidney Hook said: "Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system."

If you want to listen to the tune this Walking Man listened to this morning its...Judy Domeny Bowen's So you wanna be a teacher > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Kj8Y7aWhh8 < 

Our Women have always marched

Just want to share a few images from the Women's March. Words really can't give justice to the love, the power, and the joy of marching with them yesterday in Washington DC 

Women have marched since the very first march for justice. 
They marched out of bondage with the Hebrew people, 
They marched north to freedom with Harriet Tubman, they marched for voting rights, 
They marched at Selma, they marched with Dr. King in 63, 
And every step they took they marched with love, dignity, and hope.
And their sons, brothers, and husbands have marched with them. 
How honored I am to have marched with them yesterday in DC.
Through these beautiful tears of love and joy.
Yesterday was for you Momma,  for my sisters Cathy, Jessica, and Maryellen,  for my wife dearest Carolyn and our amazing daughter Erin who marched in New York with her friends. 
Love, love, love and more love, 
Jesse The Walking Man Turner

PS singing all the way home Peter Gabriel's Shaking The Tree
"Souma Yergon, Sou Nou Yergon, We are shakin' the tree 
Souma Yergon, Sou Nou Yergon, We are shakin' the tree 

Waiting your time, dreaming of a better life 
Waiting your time, you're more than just a wife 
You don't want to do what your mother has done 
She has done 
This is your life, this new life has begun 
It's your day - a woman's day 
It's your day - a woman's day 

Turning the tide, you are on the incoming wave 
Turning the tide, you know you are nobody's slave 
Find your Brothers and sisters 
Who can hear all the truth in what you say 
They can support you when you're on your way 
It's your day - a woman's day 
It's your day - a woman's day" 

Here is the link to Peter's song > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_Q79lls1f0 <

America's heart problem and my Momma's lullaby at the Women's March

--> https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000003975536/lullaby.html

2. 5 million American children was homeless at some point in 2014. The problem is not getting better my friends. Readers, please take 6 minutes to watch the short documentary link above, about young mothers living at Siena House shelter in the Bronx who write lullabies to bond with their babies. The film is speaking to America 2017, the world's richest and most powerful nation.
Rev Dr. William Barber said "America has a heart problem". 
I see an America that has in my humble opinion, wage a war on our poor mothers and their families for decades.  An America that at the same time rewards the wealthy, the powerful and the connected every single day.
However, this video is less about America's heart problem, but about the beautiful hearts of homeless mothers, and the power of music to heal themselves and their babies.   

Bob Marley sings...

"But my 'and was made strong

By the 'and of the Almighty

We forward in this generation

Triumphantly

Won't you help to sing

These songs of freedom?

'Cause all I ever have

Redemption songs"

I remember being homeless, I remember my Mother and I holding all we owned in one suit case and two brown paper bags. I remember sleeping in the train station. I remember my mother saying you are going to live with your sister Jessica and her husband James for a while. I remember being afraid.

I remember her singing me to sleep on that wooden bench in the Erie-Lackawanna station in Hoboken New Jersey. 
I remember being welcomed, embraced and loved in my sister's house. I would live with my sister and my brother in law for many beautiful years. I was blessed at every turn. In their home, and at school by loving and caring teachers.
I remember moving back in with my Momma when I went to college.
I remember it all, and none of it crushed me.
While I may have had nothing at times.
I have always had a mother's lullaby where ever I roamed.

" It's Okay Mommy is here..
She's not going anywhere,
It's Okay Mommy is here,
She's not going anywhere...
Mommy is here"

I am marching with Save Our Schools tomorrow at the Women's March in DC.
I am marching with my wife and my fellow educators.
I shall march with my mother's lullaby every step of the way.
For as long as I can hear her voice in my heart,  I walk with love, dignity, and hope.
I know America's mothers are not the ones with a heart problem. Love to every mother in every place in the land.
Here's to those beautiful redemption lullabies that kept their babies warm through every cold night.

Still my Momma's boy,
Jesse Patrick Turner

If you like to listen to the tune this Walking Man listened to on my morning walk ...it's the Black Eyed Peas singing their remix of "Where is the love" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsRMoWYGLNA

Of course I'm marching on 1-21-17 at the Women's March with SOS

I am going to the Women's March on January 21, 2017, because I have always stood with others standing for justice and equity. I am happy to stand up for justice alone and with others. The size of the crowd is not important. What matters is will you stand up for justice. My life has been blessed by serving in the struggle to defend the vulnerable, the sick, the poor, and our children.

I have always struggled with American politics and voters who almost on cue vote against their own interests, and over look injustice at every turn.

A nation that consistently has been at war with it's poor and middle class since it's earliest days.
A nation that enslaved Africans, and called them 3/5's of a human being.
A nation where justice has always been elusive at best for our Black and Brown brothers and sisters.
A nation that kept the vote from it's own mothers and daughters for over a hundred years.

A nation that dismantled it's own industrial based, gave industries billion dollars in tax credits for doing it, and low cost loans to build new factories overseas.
A flawed and imperfect union, a people I love and would died for on any given day.
Our nation yawning for justice owns this heart. 

Like Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes, 'I too sing" America.
Like Langston Hughes, I cry out "Let America Be America".
Like Dr. Martin Luther King, I march for an American dream that never was,
But could be,
If only we all marched.

A nation's where tax rates for the wealthy fell from 90% in 1950 to 35% today. All things being relative perhaps there were no millionaires or billionaires in the 50(s), 60(s), 70(s), and 80(s)? Taxes did not stop the wealthy from being wealthy or living large. We are the nation that elected a billionaire who hasn't paid federal income taxes in over 20 years.
Ask yourselves have middle class tax rates dropped by nearly two thirds since 1950?
Do you know any middle class tax payers who have not paid taxes for 20 years, and are not facing prison sentences?

A nation that provides corporate welfare for their rich and powerful. A wealthy where some openly said we don't need it.
A nation that gives and gives to the wealthy, the powerful and the connected time and time again, and always with a smile.
Almost saying, we wish, we could do more to make you richer of course.

All the while our elderly, the sick, the poor, and our veterans are told they are problems, and given crumbs, sent away being told to consider themselves lucky.

Dr. King protested regardless of who controlled the White House. In 63 Dr. King quoted scripture saying “Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Like Martin I plan to fight for justice until it rolls down like water. I am marching on Saturday, because if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was here he would be marching with our women. I am marching, because at the age of eight years old I marched with my grandfather at the 1963 March on Washington with Martin.

The system, always been corrupt, but now it is blatantly corrupt.
I know my mission,
I know where I stand,
And for who I'll stand for.
The question is not about how corrupt the system is, but will you march against the corruption of justice in our nation?

I am honored and blessed to march for justice and equity.
Silence and apathy are not acceptable,
Jesse The Walking Man Turner

Please consider marching with Save Our School March on 1-21-17. We are meeting at 9:30 at the United States Department of Education in Washington DC. We will join the march at 10:AM

If you like to listen to the song that inspired my morning walk today it's .... Sweet Honey in the Rock 'Keep your eyes on the prize" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_tcZAqQUAg