When I first decided to become a teacher, I didn't think about being part of a union. It wasn't the reason that I became a teacher. I became a teacher because I wanted to help the community by providing an excellent education to the kids that I would be serving. I truly believed in my mission that by being a great teacher that I could change the life of a child. Ultimately this could have a significant impact on the community in which I chose to serve.
Never did I think that the career I chose a little over a decade ago would be facing such horrendous attacks from the right and the left.
Every single day that I stepped foot into my classroom, I gave more of myself to my students than I sometimes gave to my own family. This is something that many of us who teach in a high poverty urban area often do. This is because sometimes the need is so great that to give less than everything would mean to be a failure -- not necessarily to our students, but to ourselves.
With the demands that are often placed on teachers in high poverty urban areas, there is a great need to have a strong contract. In my almost ten years in a classroom, I've been accused of being a racist on more than one occasion. This is the unfortunate reality that many of us face regardless of