FOR NEW YORK CITY TO LOVE US BACK [TEACHING AND LIVING HERE]
Question of the century: how do we create a profession that we can love and can love us back?
These ideas aren’t diametrically opposed, but they’re worth considering in the largest school district in the nation. The New York City I grew up in has changed in trajectory and culture, but not in its uncanny ability to amplify one’s aspirations. It’s cool to make fun of New York culture now that gentrification and social media have diluted our symbols, but Timberlands and a baseball fitted cap are appropriate uniform for four fierce seasons. And our tongues fire warning shots as barometers for trust.
You can walk 20 blocks in any direction and the empire uncovers a new facet of the body. The same hood glorified in our rap music changes into the architecture that poke its heads to create the preeminent skyline. Citizens discarded the stars for the artificial lights, and the concrete we walk on weathers weather and the economies.
New York City teaches us power lessons at an early age. When I walk through the Upper West Side and Chelsea, I expect their denizens to hold their bags tightly and move swiftly past me. When their sons and daughters run through the Lower East Side and Harlem, I expected rents and condos to rise as well. When I was a teen, I could walk down 14th Street and could see the Twin Towers, the Empire State Building, and Times Square all before heading to school, a scene so normal that I never considered what would happen if any of them fell.
Before the advent of blogs and cell phone cameras, native New Yorkers didn’t gawk much at CONTINUE READING: For New York City To Love Us Back [Teaching and Living Here] | The Jose Vilson