The first ripples have already gone out!

Salutations students, parents, and teachers,
A teacher from Nevada said she feels the need to stand up and fight back against this culture of test and punishment destroying public education.  She said like you I feel this is a moral call to fight back, but I sometimes feel alone in this battle. Sometimes I wonder if one moral person makes a difference against the powerful, the connected, and the greedy. Trust me sister one person always makes a difference.

First, I am an academic that knows the research. Research has always indicated an over emphasis on testing leads to more behavior problems, more special needs identifications, and higher drop out rates. Our politicians and policy makers were told this by academic after academic from the start. I know because I have told them from day of No Child Left Behind.  Margaret Mead said” "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  Trust me research and telling the truth matters!
 
Second as an academic I have followed their data on closing the achievement gap, and the evidence has consistently shown their policies are failing, and at this point even growing the achievement gap. Trust me data matters!
 
Third, yes this is a moral battle. It goes deeper than test scores, privatization, and greed. This is a battle that will determine if we as a people are willing to define our nation’s children as gifts of love, or human capital. Are they data spots on some grand scheme to label every single child either above proficiency, at proficiency, or below proficiency? Or are they our truth tellers born to right our world. Will we as a nation treat them as capital to be manipulated, or loved and valued as truth tellers in our mist? Trust me how we see our nation’s children matters!

Fourth, no one armed with the truth is alone. While I may be an academic, I am also a man of faith. It is my faith that guides my activism. In Isaiah 41:10 I find encouragement, inspiration and my strength.
“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with My righteous right hand.” Trust me faith matters!

Finally, one person armed with the truth can change the world. It may not happen all at once, but one narrative of truth grows to two, and two to three, and on and on until that truth becomes power. One way to fight this is to witness truth. Share it whenever and wherever you can.
If we find ourselves holding a sign alone that saying "Children Are More Than Test Scores" on a corner it matters.
If we share truth with one other it matters. If we join other truth tellers it matters.
If we stand-alone speaking truth to power it matters.
Every person standing alone speaking truth to power becomes a tidal wave of truth that no power on earth can stop.
You alone telling the truth matters.
You and I telling the truth together matters.
Every tidal wave can be traced back to that first ripple in the ocean.
Trust me one person speaking truth to power matters!
Call us the first ripples,
Jesse The Walking Turner

If you like to know what song this walking man was listening to on his walk this morning it's "Love Rescue Me" from Playing For Change....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz6d60ysb-Y

A society that values readers does not close librairies and schools in it's poorest communities

There is no standardize test that makes a reader,
Reading makes a reader,
Choice makes a reader,
Time for reading makes a reader,
Teachers and students reading together make readers.

Teachers don't need a standardize test to tell them who is a reader.
Teachers can see it,
Teachers can hear it,
Teachers can feel it,
Teachers can create reading moments.
Forcing teachers to comply with test and punish mandates does not make readers.

Salvador Dali did not need a standardize test to tell him he could paint.
He could see it in the paint residual on his hands.
Michelangelo did not need a standardize test to tell him he could paint.
He could feel it in the drops of paint stinging his eyes falling from the Sistine Chapel Ceiling.
Painting makes good painters.

Reading makes good readers,
Choice makes good readers,
Time to read makes good readers,
Access to books makes readers.
A society that values readers open new libraries, and fills every school with books. 

A society that does not value reading closes libraries and schools.
A society that cuts funding to libraries and schools does not value readers.
We don’t need any standardized test to tell us our politicians and policy makers don’t value readers.
We can see it in the budget cuts to local libraries.
We can see it in the billions spent for new sports stadiums.
We can see it in every tax break for billionaires. 
We can see it in the opening of every charter school that closes a local public school.
We can see it in the fact that 49 states spending more money on their wealthy schools than their poor schools.

It’s time to stop these policies of test and punish, and to begin an era of celebrating reading in our libraries and public schools.
It's time to read,
Jesse The Walking Man Turner

Everyone know hats make you a better reader, and pirates are good reading teachers.



If you really like to know what the Walking Man is listening today it's "Gotta Keep Reading"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psby0mI6ZLY

Imagine Humanity Immigration reform 2015

As I watch the millions of refugees fleeing war to Europe I can’t help thinking about 11 million human beings living in hiding in America. There but, for the grace of God. I am the grand child of Irish immigrants.  One side fled famine, and the other an oppression that outlawed their language, their history, and songs. I am an American who not only knows where he stands today, but remembers where he came from.
There is an old Irish Rebel song "Some say the devil is dead" we used to sing it after the Ceili (Step dancing) was done. After we crowned our champions. When the after gathers pulled out fiddles, tin whistles, mandolins, Uillieann pipes, banjos, bodhrans, for a good old Sean-nós.  Where we lost our American for a few hours, where we became Irish once again, and old songs reminded us of long journeys through famine and lost holding onto an enduring love of who we were. Where anything was possible, where freedom rode songs, and we were all freaking brilliant singers. After a pint or two he would jump up on a table, dance his jig, and start it all off. He would be joined on that table by one of our champions, the drink would be pouring like water, and the singing would begin….

"Some say the devil is death"

But more say he rose again,

Some say the devil is dead,

But more say he rose again, and

Joined the British Army....

On July Fourth we sing Yankee Doodle, shoot fire works, and sing God Bless America. But on the days we were Irish, and the dancing and story telling were done, we were immigrants, and we rode on songs.
One brother fought in the 16 rising for Ireland’s freedom, and the other fought on the Green Fields of France for America in the war to end all wars.  One lives to have sons who would fight in World War II, and the other became the tears of lost we still sing about on the days we are Irish.

I love being the child of immigrants. I love being the grand child of Irish immigrants. Somehow it makes me more American. I remember driving my grandfather home on those Irish nights. The old fellow never understood why one brother had to die, and the other lived.  How he never saw him laid in the ground, never held his mother and father at the grave. It’s an old story, an immigrant hurt felt by millions fleeing their woes. As soon as the key started the car, he would say little Jess take me by the river. Take me where I can see that beautiful lady and her lamp. Behind the old ballpark we would park the car, and walk out to the pier. We would watch that Lady of the Lamp. He would share his stories of two brothers running through fields, jumping on horses bareback, and throwing stones at imaginary giants. Stories of who would get the girl, who would win Ireland’s freedom, and who would go to America. He would say the dice were thrown long ago.
He would look me in the eye, and say you’re an American, but that Orange, White, and Green runs deep in your soul. He would end the night pointing to the Statue of Liberty, and say we fought for her. No other nation in the world threw open her doors to all comers.
As the first ambers of the morning Sun started breaking on cue he says do you know her my American grandson? That’s Emma Lazarus Little Jess? She was the young Jewish American Poet who won the world’s heart with her poem “The New Colossus”. Then he would start:
 
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Only after he paid his tribute to Emma could we go home. He would sleep it off on the drive.  Those rides would help me understand what makes America great is far more than being born here.
“Some people say devil is dead
 "I say he rose again”
And joined the haters, the door closers, and those lamp extinguishers.
I say he rose again, and joined we can’t pay a living wage,
He rose again saying Unions are evil leech sucking demons,
I say the devil rose again, and
He joined those who say “11 million Lamp Seekers should be deported,
I say the devil rose again, and join the “we can’t” do immigration reform.

So come at me all ye haters,
You can’t touch this child of immigrants who rode a ship into a bay where Emma Lazarus’s New Colossus held her lamp calling out:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

An America who can’t do immigration reform just aint America,
Jesse The Walking Turner  

If you want to know what this Walking Man listened to this morning on this beautiful Fall morning? It's my grandfather's favorite Irish Balladeer Paddy Rielly singing "Deportee" written in remembrance of a plane crash that killed migrant Mexican laborers on their way home from America.
https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AwrBT8N8fjdWsp8AvzVXNyoA;_ylc=X1MDMjc2NjY3OQRfcgMyBGZyA3lmcC10LTkwMQRncHJpZANtSFJZa3h5QlJkQ2QxQlZJaVN0akhBBG5fcnNsdAMwBG5fc3VnZwMxBG9yaWdpbgNzZWFyY2gueWFob28uY29tBHBvcwMwBHBxc3RyAwRwcXN0cmwDBHFzdHJsAzI4BHF1ZXJ5A3V0dWJlIHBhZGR5IHJpZWFsbHkgZGVwb3J0ZWUEdF9zdG1wAzE0NDY0Nzc1Njg-?p=utube+paddy+rieally+deportee&fr2=sb-top-search&fr=yfp-t-901&fp=1