I Want Each Of You To Remember The People Who Taught You
by Cheryl Gibbs Binkley
Sorry, I just can't leave Trumps speech passages about our school system standing. First of all, I want each of you to remember the people who taught you, and the schools you went to.
Now, I want you to think about the people who teach your children or grandchildren, or your nieces and nephews. You know, that kindergarten teacher who waited with them the day they were sick and you were trying to get there from work. Or the music teacher who worked every night til 10 and was teased mercilessly by the older boys, but trained generations of musicians in a town that would not have had any music. That English teacher who helped them or you with your college essay, or resume for that job application. The teacher who gave up a career as a scientist to teach you or your children chemistry or physics? The one who bought pencils and paper for when your kid ran out, and gave them lunch money the day they forgot theirs, but works on the side to make ends meet because s/he's paid so little? Remember the books they read to you, that taught you your numbers, your letters, the solar system, the battles and wars, and to be kind and respect one another? The one who read The Raven so spookily at Halloween that it still give you the shivers? The Christmas and Hannukah songs of all those holiday concerts, and the football and baseball coach who taught you sportsmanship and nagged you when you let your grades drop?
And please think about the schools in your community-- the buildings and fields your hard earned tax dollars built and keep repaired for the kids in your neighborhood or town, with a gym and a library, and an auditorium/theatre, and computers. You built those schools, not the federal government, and not rich men like Trump who negotiate out of paying their property taxes.OK-- See that in your mind? Those are the teachers Trump says are awash in money and the schools he says are terrible. Those are Your schools he is badmouthing. And the kids he claims know nothing? He's claiming YOU and Your Children know nothing.
He wants to take those schools and give them to venture capital companies, and billionaires like the Waltons (yes the Waltons are very into creating new schools) and they will manage them from New York, or Los Angeles or Chicago or maybe other smaller places only 200 or 300 miles away.
He wants to place teachers in your kids classes who, like his nominee the other night, don't know how old a Badass Teachers Association: I Want Each Of You To Remember The People Who Taught You by Cheryl Gibbs Binkley: