Pandemic Teaching less than inspiring, but inequality always left Poor Children uninspired!

 

Jane Goodall said: “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” A fellow academic at the end of the semester said he is extremely disappointed in his teachers' online lessons' quality. He said a majority of the lessons are uninspiring. I reminded him this is a pandemic crisis and then asked him about his lessons. Would he rate them as inspiring? I said my lessons are far from inspiring. At best, I am getting it done. He explained that he is getting it done. So, your lessons, my lessons, and most lessons being taught during this pandemic crisis are less inspiring and more about getting it done. I suggested that wasn't it really the same before COVID? I added how inspiring were lessons driven by testing and Common Core State Standards before the pandemic? Knowing he never ever challenged the negative influence of high-stakes testing and standards without equity. He has always been a status quo academic. He always ran to every policy workshop and never ever in the past 20-years questioned anything suggested. Our conversation ended with preach somewhere else, Jesse. I live in the real world. If there is one thing the real world does, my friend is leaving us uninspired. My inspiration comes from deciding not to merely teach the truth but to fight for it outside the schoolhouse world. How inspiring is it for poor children, their parents, and their teachers in knowing America spends less on their public education than the education of wealthy schools? Want inspired lessons, then give all public children all our children quality and equitable public education. Quality and equity are my cornerstones for inspiration in my book. Until then, the poor children and their teachers are on their own for inspiration. Inspiration in our public schools should not be something that children and teachers are on their own for. I do my best with my lessons, sometimes they get the job done, and sometimes they go beyond and may even inspire a few. Want inspiration in my lessons is often found when I share my battles outside the classroom for all children, all schools, and yes, all teachers. Inspiration requires teachers to fight the systemic and structural racism that supports this School to Prison Public School System. Inspiration requires more than teaching to get it done. Inspiration requires teachers to question injustice in the classroom, in the schoolhouse, and in the nation. Anything less is uninspiring, Dr. Jesse P. Turner Uniting to Save Our Schools

If you want to listen to the tune that inspired this walking man's morning walk today? Its Marvin Gaye's "What going on" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-kA3UtBj4M

Dear President-Elect Biden pick the Secretary who looks past the masses to the one child

 

Imagine if policymakers and legislators, saw the child, and not the test score?

I never ever tire of reading Loren Eiseley's The Starfish thrower. "A young girl was walking along the long stretch of a seashore one morning, where after a terrible storm, thousands of starfish had been washed ashore.

The striking aspect of the young girl’s walk is that,

As she walked along the beach,

She would pick up one starfish at a time and gently throw it back into the ocean.

An older gentleman observing her,

Approaches her, and out of curiosity,

He asked her why she was throwing the starfish into the ocean. The girl replies with urgency in her voice that, with the sun up and the tide declining, she needed to get these starfish in the water, or they would die.

“But young lady, do you not realize that there are many miles of beach and thousands of starfish? You cannot possibly make a difference.”

The girl listened.

But then, she bends down and picks up another starfish and throws it into the sea, and

She said, “It made a difference for that one”

At 65, the teacher in me, like the teacher I was at 65, understands that teaching and learning are not about the masses. It is always about making a difference one starfish at a time.

This is what our policymakers, legislators, and CEOs chasing test scores can understand. To them, it is an all or none kind of view.

These very people have failed to fully fund all public schools. They cry budget deficits every year, demanding teachers save all on the cheap. This we can't afford more leadership endlessly blaming teachers, children, parents, and those public schools for all society's ills. They are like that old broken vinyle record stuck on the same beat, And so am I. I have written see the child not the test scores 10,000 times. I shall not tire, I shall write it 10,000 more, The story of teaching and learning is not written in numbers, The story is always about one child at a time. At 65, like the teacher, I was at 25, I have always known,

We can't do the masses on the cheap.

But, making the difference to one-child looking up at any given moment of our teaching day,

We'll save one child at a time,

For 10,000 years,

Dr. Jesse P. Turner

CCSU Literacy Center Director If you like to listen to the tune that inspired my walk this morning through the snow? Its "We Shall Be know" cover by Thrive Choir. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4xhQcgyoLk

Dedicated to all of you, On fire Rank and File members of Connecticut Public School Advocates

 

I am a Man On Fire, living in a nation where billionaires do not have to pay their fair share,
I am a Man On Fire living in a nation where schools teaching Black, Brown, Poor, and Special Education children are given less, while wealthy mainly White schools are given more than they need. 
I am a man on fire, living in a nation where the children of working-class Americans leave our universities struggled with lifetime debts, 
I am a man on fire, where structural racism is deeply rooted in our nation's public school system. 

A Man on Fire rejects silence,
A Man on Fire rejects apathy,
A Man on Fire is never resting,
A Man on Fire has work to do every day.

What does a Man On Fire have to say to our new President-Elect? 
What does a Man On Fire have to say to our nation's 50 Governors?
What does a Man On Fire have to say to 50 state commissioners of education?
What does a Man On Fire have to say to our nation's Senators and members of Congress,
What does a Man On Fire have to say to the legislative bodies of 50 states?
What does a Man On Fire have to say to America's mayors?
What does a Man On fire have to say to the Robber Barons of Wall Street?

What does this Man On Fire want to know from our nation's leaders?
Why for over 170 years and counting,
Allowed our Nation's Public Schools to give more to wealthy schools than to poor schools?
Knowing that Black, Brown, Poor, and Special Education have never known a single year of a quality and equitable education. 
This Man On Fire is asking how can you not be on fire?

If you are wondering what tune this Man On Fire is listening to this morning? Its Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros "A Man On Fire" 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08WeoqWilRQ