If this is Saturday . . .
it must be time for my normal Saturday morning reflection on teaching, life and everything else.
I don't know which bothers me more, that the recent Republican debates have not discussed education, or the policies of the Obama administration that I see as destructive.
I am reminded of something a former National Teacher of the Year wrote. Anthony Mullen once got frustrated being in a room full of political types and consultants talking about education "reform" who for the most part ignored him, until finally they asked him what he thought. He then wondered aloud why his opinion was not asked about improving medical outcomes, since he had about as much expertise on medical matters as they did on education. They did not respond well to his words.
On Tuesday I will see if at the local level things can be different. Our Superintendent is having one of several meetings he will hold with teachers. Each school in our immediate area was invited to send one teacher to a 90 minute meeting with the Superintendent and his top assistants. I am actually not the selectee of our school, in large part because I am increasingly likely to retire at the end of the year - the woman picked is actually my former student teacher!. But the President of the union was asked to select 5 additional teachers and he asked me, surprisingly during a phone call in which I first informed him I was resigning as lead union rep for our building (I have too much else on my plate at this point). The Superintendent knows me and my work, and several of his assistants who will be there are people with whom i have worked. I'm not sure what will be accomplished, as we have been given no agenda to help prepare us, but at least it is an attempt to include the voices of teachers as policy is being discussed.
I mentioned that I am increasingly likely to retire. I have no idea if I will be accepted either for the doctoral program at Harvard to which I have applied, or for the fellowship at Columbia to which I have also applied. It might be both, it might be neither. But the process of applying has helped me think through seriously what I want to do with the rest of my life. I am as I write this less than 4 months from my 66th birthday, and less than 1 from when my first Social Security check will be deposited in my account. That helps make more pertinent the reflections about my future.
The combination of the increasing pace of the political season, the possible impending approach of the end of my teaching career, the concerns about my own future and the future of this country - this is the context in which i write this morning.