Becoming an Activist: From George Washington to Teachers

One of the goals of Education Notes is to provide information and stimulate teachers to become activists. So I tell this tale with that goal in mind.

I just heard an interesting interview with George Washington biographer Ron Chernow on NPR. The roots of Washington's activism were based on personal grievances and resentments at the British (was GW the first tea partier?). As political events in the 1760's began to heat up, Washington was able to transform these grievances into a broader identification with the majority of colonists who were affected negatively by British policies.

Chernow posed Washington in contrast to people like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson whose activism was based on ideological grounds rather than rooted in personal pique. I don't really know enough to say this was true but it got me thinking, always a dangerous thing.

Are all movements rooted in personal issues? 

People are asking what is the difference between teachers in Chicago and New York in terms of activity. In Seattle, there were over a hundred CORE members and everyone I met was so knowledgeable about ed issues - they has become educated, activated and mobilized.

Is it the fact that Chicago has been under mayoral control for 16 years and savaged by the ed deformers? A weaker union all those years than here in NY that couldn't prevent the firing of teachers from closed schools who couldn't get jobs no matter what their seniority? Will it take more catastrophes here to create a wide spread movement of teacher activists?


Educate, organize, mobilize- the 3 pillars of activism
I had a conversation recently with a teacher who has become extremely active in opposition to the ed deformers over the past two years as an educator (writing and disseminating info to teachers and parents, an organizer (working in school and beyond to get other people active) and a mobilizer (bringing people out to various events).

It started in her own school which has been severely impacted by the BloomKlein policies of ed deform. Though she had a basis of being involved in issues of social justice, motivated by standing in front of the often damaged kids in her class on a daily basis, it took a particular event that impacted on her personally to rev up the engine to new levels.
 
We talked about the roots of activism and how some teachers come to it from ideology - they were active in college or in other causes or were socialists with a core of activism in their blood. Some chose teaching for that very reason. There seems to be a different level of motivation - they would be active no matter what they did. At times there seemed to be a disconnect between their activism and the kids they teach. Think theorists like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.

Teachers activated by their personal experiences - grievances against the system or from the plight of their kids - by the way - 2 very different type of motivations -  rather than ideological underpinnings not necessarily rooted in the job - seem to come at things in a different way. I identify myself with the former crew. (Think "George Washington" - and those wooden teeth!)


Sometimes I find a disconnect among teacher activists with an ideological bent who often talk in theory and rhetoric. I am much more practically oriented - based on my personal experiences working with teachers and children. Not always the best way either since some ideology is necessary as a framework.


One interesting point made was that Washington was the only founding father to free all his slaves in his will - an interesting point. Did it stem from his practicality over ideology as he saw the impact of slavery and how it was so counter to the principals of the founding of this nation while Jefferson only saw things theoretically?

My personal roots of activism
When I started teaching in 1967 it was to escape the Vietnam war. Just a job with no concern for kids or ideology and I was nowhere near an activist. I had no ideological underpinnings and had in fact missed the 60's. I never picketed or protested anything.

For the first year and a half I was a full time sub in one school – an ATR (we were called Above Quota teachers) – a white lower middle class kid (my dad was a garment worker who had not gotten past 8th grade and my mom was also a garment worker who was a refugee and could barely read and write English) thrust into a school in Williamsburg in Brooklyn that served almost all Black and Hispanic kids - an environment so alien that it felt like the moon. Over that year and a half I was working on my Masters in history with the intention of going on to an academic career and getting out of teaching as soon as I could. I began to develop relationships with some of the kids. I was also bored. Thus when a teacher/lawyer had a chance to not be drafted and jumped out of the job I offered to take over his class.

It was Feb. 1969. Remember- the fall of '68 was broken by 3 teacher strikes, so I really still had little more than a year plus a few months teaching experience, all as a sub. But in my time as a sub in the same school - I highly recommend this as a way to get new teachers some experience and knowledge under their belts without causing much harm) - I learned enough about teaching from watching and working with other teachers to feel I had a shot at succeeding. That the lawyer/teacher didn't seem to give a crap about this 4-8 low performing class made me feel I couldn't do worse. I actually did better. Much better and by June 1969 I felt I was a full-fledged teacher, earning the respect of the two most critical voices in the school - the teacher trainer and the very tough AP. That I succeeded with this difficult class in the eyes of everyone, changed the course of my life.

To ed deformers I would have been a failure
At this point let me point out that to the value-added ed deformers who would judge my "success" based on test scores, I may have been viewed as a total failure (I don't think there was much progress between Feb and the test a few months later). And since I didn't have tenure - maybe even fired. That I took a class in some disarray with a number of difficult kids and got them organized into a cohesive force with the kids actually seeming to enjoy coming to school or that the two most experienced and respected educators in my school loved my work, would be of no account. And I would have had that academic career or entered the Foreign Service (I took the test and did well).

An activist friend
One of my boyhood pals, a lawyer, was also escaping the draft and joined a domestic peace corps, was placed into the same neighborhood where he also had to live. (By the way, he still lives there and is still an activist). It was that contact that led to my getting interested in local educational struggles and by the fall of 1970 I was an activist and have pretty much remained in the mix – though I missed the 80's and early part of the 90's. But that's a story for another time.

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After Burn
Make sure to check out the articles I post on Norms Notes. This one is a whopper from The Amsterdam News taking down Geoffrey Canada and his Harlem Children's Zone.

Amsterdam News: charter school (Harlem Children's Zone) Not Making the Grade

A Night With Pete Seeger and 40 Friends and a Sense of Activism

The theme I got out of Pete Seeger's 90th birthday celebration last Sunday was that activism is not dead. There is so much to write about, especially Springsteen's amazing speech capturing the essence of Seeger, that I can't really write about any of it. Suffice to say 4 hours with Arlo Guthrie, John Mellencamp, Joan Baez, Ani DiFranco, Roger McGuinn, Emmylou Harris and Bruce Springsteen and so many others, makes for an amazing evening. I'm not much of a music person and my one regret was that we weren't sitting with our friends who have an in depth knowledge of music and could have guided us through the massive list of performers. It was only after the concert on the way home that we got so many interesting insights. Well, maybe for Pete's 100th.

The NY Times review is here. Naturally it deals only with the music, ignoring the political content. The review makes it seem it was about Obama, but a renewed spirit of activism is fueled as much by the reaction to George Bush as by Obama.

The Garden was filled with a sense of activism. The Seeger concert was the middle event in 3 days of activism, all of which I'll go into further details at other times.

On Saturday, I joined a dozen people at the 2nd session of Teachers Unite teacher activism course. Many of them were young teachers who are anxious to go beyond the classroom in helping create social change. It is good to see they understand the need to focus on making the 800 ground gorilla, the UFT, into a progressive force for change. They are seeing through Weingarten's phony rhetoric that she is a reformer because she supports charter schools and the modification of teacher rights. Some of them are considering running for chapter leader and we are holding an information session for them on May 18.

On Monday, the charter school conference at PACE sponsored by the newly formed Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) of which ICE and Ed Notes are part of, was a resounding success as a mix of experienced and newer teachers turned out to hear a panel discuss the issue of what is really driving the charter school movement. I took video, so more on this event in a few days.

Today Gem meets to take things to the next step- our march up lower Manhattan to Tweed on May 14. We are not concerned about numbers as we are building the movement and expect more events to take place. But if you are a teacher or parent in NYC, you should consider joining us. This is not the UFT type top-down rally, but truly from the grass roots. So 50 or a 100 or 300 people organizing and taking part has more long term consequences. If you can't join us on the march, go directly to Tweed where we expect to meet up at around 5-5:30. More details to come.

Pete Seeger is a model for all of us. The events I took part in Saturday, Sunday, Monday and today, all relate to Pete's spirit. There can be no change if you stay on the sideline.