The sham of America: School Choice without Equity Monsters

 

"People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state on innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster." ~James Baldwin

Dear Policymakers and Legislators, we see your cowardice. 

You dance and sing those old minstrel lies:

Testing will save Black, Brown, Special Education, and Poor  children,

Charter schools will save them,

Magnet Schools will save them,

School Choice will save them,

Teach for America will save them.

Schools for profit will save them.

The song you dare not sing is about quality and equality for all children.

This tune would make you moral heroes to all; you run from, hide from, and dare not imagine it. 

Justice is too costly in your world.

But, our nation's dreamer Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke from his Birmingham prison cell in 

"Justice too long delayed is justice denied."

Heroes speak the truth; they never run from it or deny it.

We see you.

You can't do equity, 

Your minstrel dance of lies, 

Reveal your lies, and they damn you.

They expose your cowardice,

They show us, 

Monsters of injustice.

We see you,

Dr. Jesse P. Turner 

Uniting to Save Our Schools

Badass Teacher,

If you like to hear the tune that inspired my walk this morning? It is Pete Seeger's version of We Shall Over Come  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gmTxc2wGTI

Academics not only have to write, and speak about justice, we must TURN UP for JUSTICE! 

Bishop John Selders is an academic who TURN UP! 

History Equals The Game Plan Against Hate

 

Maya Angelou said: “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”

Reading between the lines of these Florida and Texas Governors who want to ban books and factual history. It is not about Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, or CRT; it is TRUTH they fear. 

What frightens the hell out of them; is the actual historical truth. History is the game plan showing how racist attempts to suppress Black, Brown, Women, and LGBTQ Americans always fail in the end. 

They are not afraid of their children feeling bad; they don't want children to see how miserably hate has failed time and time again.

Case in point, the Georgia State Legislature denied Civil Rights Activist Julian Bond his seat three times. He took it to the highest court in the land.  Georgia lost in the Supreme Court. History gives people a game plan against hate. These book and history haters fear truth more than anything else. Why attack history? They lack the courage to face actual history. They do not want you to see the game plan to defeat them. 

History is the game plan against hate,

Dr. Jesse P. Turner 

Uniting to Save Our Schools

Badass Teacher

If you like to listen to the tune that inspired my morning walk today, it is Roots cover of
"Aint Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around" from The Soundtrack For A Revolution. 
Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ6mhRZ8LjM

PS History is the game plan, read it, learn it, and use it. 

Doing their best to kill the joy

 

A bit of Jackson Brown's Great Pretender lives in me. I wake up some days a bit lost, but then I find my dreams in the smiling faces of those children and teachers I work with.. My fellow teachers and our CCSU Literacy Teachers are path finders. 

When I was a young university student, Dr. Jerry Weiss asked us to consider stories from different points of view. He said what if you read To Kill a Mockingbird from the point of view of a Black Person, Hispanic Person, LGBT person, Immigrant, White person, a person of faith, and a person of no faith. What happened in that in class that day became one of my deepest most sincere learning experiences. Readers bring their life experiences to the text they read, and those experiences lead to multiple meanings. I would learn later on about Louise Rosenblatt's Reader Response Theory which took it to the next level. 

Well, teaching that novels have different points of view leads right into Rudine Sims Bishop's Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Doors. Teachers have learning experiences that shape them; they are fed not by Common Core State Standards, but by theory. Research shapes us. 

Our work is hard, and our nation's policymakers and legislators are working around the clock to make it harder. They don't care much for research; they prefer counting numbers. Professionally my view is a public school system that often tries to break teachers. It is around the concept of breaking teachers that I begin to feel lost, a great pretender. I then remember research guides me in the right direction, not test scores or policymakers. I remember teachers can make learning joyful. Then I put on my Mr. Icredible outfit, and say Does anyone feel like winning a gold medal today. 

Then I remember these teachers and children needed me to rise above the noise. When I do that, I find my teaching soul. With teachers it is never about us; it is about those we teach. 

For 40 years the ones I teach have always brought me back to my teaching dream. That dream that said I will be a teacher who makes a difference. Teaching is difficult, and the system appears to be making it harder, but those faces in front of me make it worth every day for 40 years. 

I am the Great Pretender renewing my dream,

Dr. Jesse P. Turner 

CCSU Literacy Center Director 

If you like to listen to the song that inspired my morning walk it is Jackson Brown's The Great Pretender. >  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xowaOsutxA4&ab_channel=MaliYojez <