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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Seattle Schools Community Forum: The Limits of My Endurance

Seattle Schools Community Forum: The Limits of My Endurance:

The Limits of My Endurance

I have been an education activist for about eleven years now. I have clashed with the district about two hundred times. I have never won. People wonder how I can keep doing this. Don't I get burned out? Don't I get tired? What the hell is wrong with me? Is it some kind of neurosis?

There are two secrets to my endurance.

  1. I don't expect to win. Ever. If I have clashed with the district two hundred times then my won-loss record is 0-200. My greatest successes have been taking them to overtime on a couple of occasions. As I have long said "The futility of my efforts does not excuse me from the obligation to make those efforts."
  2. I don't suffer from any outrage fatigue because it is always something new that outrages me. I am not some kind of Johnny-One-Note. I don't keep repeating the same complaint over and over (although some