Salutations to occupiers everywhere

Salutations and Happy New Year to all you beautiful Occupiers everywhere.

A teacher named Ruby from Indiana asked people on a listserve "if libraries in their areas charged fees"?  Her library charged fees, and required three year renewals.  Libraries here in Connecticut do not charge fees, and update old cards without any real hassle.  What does all this really mean? For me it demonstrates a growing meanness that is destroying everything public, an attack on the general good, an affront to our humanity as a people. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in the Great Gatsby... "Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a revelry of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken..."

There is no question in my mind "Occupy" has become a new emerging narrative, one that questions the worship of success being defined as money and power. My thinking is,  America is always at a cross road between meanness and kindness.  "Occupy" is an emerging narrative at that cross road that those in power feel the need to mock, because "Occupy" makes it hard for them to look at themselves in the mirror. Occupiers revealed the ugliness of the gluttony of the powerful and wealthy, and it also reveals some of our own shame. 

If Fitzgerald were writing "The Great Gatsby" today, the word occupy might very well be the only word under those eyes of the divine on that billboard outside George Wilson's home. 

I agree with Gandhi when he said: "Poverty is the worst form of violence." I see this attack on all things public as a violent attack on the poor. Things like fees and renewals serve only to discourage the poor from entering our libraries. 

I remember one freezing winter, a long time ago,  when my family had no heat in our little apartment.  It was the library that kept my sisters and I warm after school while my mother was at work. If my Mom had to pay a fee at the library she would not have been able to pay it. Instead my sisters and I would have sat in a freezing apartment surrounded by cold walls devoid of any books. Public spaces such as libraries,  do so much  more than keep its patrons warm; they help to make us who we are. 

The ladies at our library knew that we were there for much more than just books... These librarians made extra sure my sisters and I were welcomed every day. "Salutations- to the Turner family are you coming to discover your next great adventure? We have your usual table by the window reserved just for you" they would say to us each and every day.  One day I asked her “Mrs. Johnson what does Salutations mean?” ….”Well my little man let me introduce you to "Charlotte" your next great adventure.”…  Those wonderful librarians made sure a little boy who was without a hat or gloves in the midst of a cold winter was given a brand new pair of gloves.  Gloves that just happened to be his size... and had somehow mysteriously showed up in the lost and found... The faith of those librarians was never shaken, and those gloves made sure my faith in humanity remains unshaken today. 

We too can make a difference, by living unshaken lives. By teaching, by sharing, by questioning, and the random acts of kindness we do every single day. My heroes have always been those acts of kindness known as teachers and librarians. Today I am adding those brave occupiers of public spaces everywhere to my hero list. 

Still marching, still walking, and soon to be occupier at the DOE this spring with Opt Out,
Jesse 

The above photo (somewhat blurred) is of me, saluting an occupier from Occupy Dame Street, in Dublin, Ireland, on 12/30/11. 

Walking song of the day "I hear them all by the Crow Medicine Show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug7IgB8MfWE 
For those wishing to join us for Occupy The DOE in DC this March 30, 31, and April 1 & 2: 
http://unitedoptout.com/uncategorized/occupy-doe-rules-of-engagement/

The data that count, and the data that really count

http://www.aauw.org/learn/research/upload/CrossingTheLine.pdf

Crossing the line report indicates that "Sexual harassment is part of everyday life in middle and high schools. Nearly half (48 percent) of the students surveyed experienced some form of sexual harassment in the 2010–11 school year, and the majority of those students (87 percent) said it had a negative effect on them.1 Verbal harassment (unwelcome sexual comments, jokes, or gestures) made up the bulk of the incidents, but physical harassment was far too common." (Hill, & Kearl, 2011).

While MNBC's Education Nation, Secretary Arne Duncan, and Common Core Standards followers are chasing higher test scores our children are being groped in school hallways, called “faggot” and bullied online.  Tell me again how NCLB/RTTT address this issue?

Can someone please explain to me how NCLB/RTTT's moral compass addresses the issues of  poverty, bullying, racism facing our children?  
What if my school has high test scores, but also has serious issues with sexual harassment? No problem really under NCLB..all that matters are a school's test scores. Now I get it NCLB/RTTT have no moral compass!

Just where in the Common Core Standards do we address the real issues facing our young people?  

There is the data that count, and the data that really count. The way I view the failure of NCLB is it misses the data that really count.  High stakes testing is merely the smoke screen hiding the real issues of school inequality America. 

Imagine what we could achieve if we address the real issues facing our children in our schools?

Imagine what we could achieve with education reform that saw our children as more than data? 

Still marching, 

Jesse

The people are stepping up!

Once again it appears the pundits of mass media are confused. They say claim our Occupy Wall Street people, and all the other occupiers popping up across America, and in cities all over the world lack a central message a single focus.

Well let me put on my teaching hat for you politicians and media pundits. First you must stop listening to your own sound bites. Listening to your self talking is not listening to others. The answer is standing right before you.
The people are speaking, and you are still missing the point. Listening is a skill that involves more than waiting for the answers you like, or the ones that fit neatly into your perfect sound bites. Life is complicated, but here it is from one Liz Hourican, one of the protestors in Phonnix:
"Peace activists, indigenous rights activists, immigrant activists - they're all here. It may sound different to you but it's all the same. We're all stepping up and saying something's wrong."
Print this headline the people are stepping up and saying something is wrong, and we are taking back our country!
Here is my proposal friends: The Opt Out Of The State Test: The National Movement > http://unitedoptout.com/< is planning to occupy the United States Department of Education this coming March 30, 31, April 1 and 2. I say lets join them. Lets occupy every DOE in all 50 states?
I am asking all the members of Children Are More Than Test Scores > https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=352118040858< to occupy the DOEs in the state they live in on those dates as well. I am proposing to the Save Our Schools March & National Call To Action > http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/< leadership that we join this occupy effort.
The time for stepping up, standing up, walking, marching, and speaking up is now!
I am going to organize a coalition of the willing in Connecticut to occupy the DOE this spring, and I am going to put my heart and soul into making this happen, and I am going to join the Opt Out group in DC on April 1 and 2 in solidarity as they occupy the United States Department of Education. I salute those at Occupy Wall Street.
Still walking to DC,
Jesse