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Monday, September 8, 2014

NYC Educator: A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven

NYC Educator: A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven:



A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven


I was pretty surprised to read a story in the NY Post with a picture of a few dozen white teachers wearing NYPD shirts. Apparently they'd triumphed over the insidious UFT, which had somehow advised them against wearing said apparel. There was talk of appropriate apparel, and vague threatened consequences for wearing things deemed inappropriate. I guess UFT was trying to be tactful.

I respect NYPD. My daughter aspires to be NYPD. I don't wear an NYPD t-shirt because I haven't got one, but I might if I did.

Still, I wouldn't have gotten together with 20 of my colleagues and worn one to make a statement the first day of school. Why not?

I'm gonna suppose that most of my readers are teachers. So imagine this. A teacher gets caught selling cigarettes on the street one day. One single policeman decides to stop this. The teacher decides to resist arrest and said policeman kills this teacher.

On the first day of school, after your colleague is killed on the street, you walk in to your place of work. You're greeted by the principal, and by all the APs, and they're all wearing NYPD shirts. They want to show support for NYPD on this particular day. How do you feel?

Imagine this, instead. You are not an adult. You are a student, a minority student. (In fact, that's an odd term, because minority students form the NYC Educator: A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven: