March 14, 2012
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1 No News: Last night’s meeting at the District office seemed fine. Our union had some incredible speeches by some quite eloquent speakers, including our own site president Marla Bressani and my Activities’ Director successor and close friend Victoria Duran.
2 Both delivered wonderful speeches, bringing a humanity to the entire evening. I stood proud, not only of them, but of our school’s presence at the meeting. For a dark, rainy night, we brought a lot of people.
3 I thank everyone who attended. Our message was delivered loud and clear: don’t touch our benefits.
4 It was also fun to see some familiar faces out there: Nancy Galindo, Leslie Conrotto, Dave Fredericks, Gary Berg, Hector Campos, and a few others. I realized that all those people have history with me, and with working hard for the students.
5 I don’t know which teacher it was who said this, but one teacher said that we aren’t members from some other community who come in and teach and then live miles away; we all are and have been active members of the San Jose community, and not only have all lived here for years, but who are also taxpayers.
6 We all know this community backwards and forwards; we all live within ten miles of one another, and have for many, many years.
7 We know all of the issues unique to the District.
8 And we all, to a person, are passionate about teaching.
9 The class size issue also kept coming up in speeches last night. We already bended on the increase in class sizes a few years ago. Someone brought up the increase of three students per class, and the impact that fifteen extra students has had on our personal lives.
10 One teacher said that she has such an immense increase in paperwork that she grades papers at stoplights. I’m serious.
11 Readers of the DN have heard me grousing all year about being constantly inundated by paperwork to the point of not being able to see family or friends on weekends.
12 Class size increases also cause havoc in the classroom. Classes are ten per cent noiser. Many rooms don’t have enough desks to accomodate the larger sizes. The noise level can get astonishing. And class size isn’t the only thing we have caved to as teachers.
13 We haven’t had a raise since 2001. This is another concession we have made to the crisis in California school funding. No raise in eleven years.
14 I don’t know that we ever again will.
15 Teaching is really mirroring everything that is going on in every company in America; it’s just that we are trying to fight back for not only ourselves, but for our students, our families, and our community.
16 I’ll try to keep you posted. It is an issue that should touch everybody, because all of this affects our children, and their children, and on and on.
17 Thanks to everybody who wrote me emails and letters of encouragement. I return the support by hoping and praying that our economy might right itself, and that many of you going through the same sort of thing get jobs back, or maybe even better jobs. Thanks to some remarkable speakers, our message about benefits was loud and clear. Enough. You have taken enough. We will not let you touch our benefits.
18 There’s a moment in the film JFK, the now classic 1993 film by Oliver Stone, in which Kevin Costner, playing the part of Jim Garrison, says in a choking voice, “We want our country back!”
19 I taught all about the Kennedy assassination for years, always warning my students about what happened, and what was happening today as a result of that great tragedy in 1963. I remember being labeled a “conspiracy theorist”, which is almost instantly a death warrant to anybody who has spent countless hours researching the real history of the past fifty years.
20 I used JFK to teach fiction versus non-fiction, research, and how to trust different media sources. It is also an amazing story, one of the most incredible non-fiction stories I’ve ever experienced. And it twists and turns and distorts to this very minute.
21 Well, nearly everything that I ever researched has come to pass. It is now staring at all of us, entering all of our lives, and a LOT of people are getting a sense that there is something WAY out of whack in America in 2012.
22 And I like that people are beginning to find out. I’m glad that people are standing up for the future of our children. I’m overwhelmed with the amount of people discovering that there are people up there who need to be voted out, or maybe even arrested.
23 The outrage is out there. People are looking back historically. They are beginning to sense the lies and the extent to which the very rich will go to stay rich.
24 Whether it is left or right, it all ends up in the same place.
25 I’m not happy that things I’ve reported over the years are just now being accepted as almost mainstream. I wish it had been mainstream from the start. But with the advent of the internet, and with insta-communications with our incredible technology, people can in a millisecond land at the doorstep of moguls like Rupert Murdoch and get in his face.
26 I still believe in America.
27 I still believe that we can stand up and call these heinous people on their lives of crime. I still believe in the goodness of most people, and in the power of the people to intelligently investigate and to prosecute.
28 Our stories are becoming to much alike for us not to.
29 It doesn’t always go down that it is democrats versus republicans. If you go to the extreme in either of the parties, you will probably be led to the same story. It might not be a story we want to hear, but it is closer to the truth than all these politicians will let you believe.
30 I didn’t really want to go off on a diatribe this morning; I just wanted to share something that is happening not only to teaching, but to every profession and every family in America, and in fact, in very much of the world.
31 And I still see hope. I saw eloquence coming out of voices last night as young as twelve, and as old as sixty-five.
32 Those voices told the story of America in 2012.
33 So I’ll leave this DN a little early, I trust.
34 Thank you for listening about this stuff the past two days. Many of you have followed the DN this year because it has been almost a diary of the life of a normal (ah, okay, go ahead, go ahead!) teacher going through a normal teaching year.
35 Standing in the parking lot last night, Gary Berg, one of my dearest friends, asked me how old I was. Without blinking, I said, “Thirty!” Some guy walking by said, “Yeah, thirty years in the District!”
36 We both broke into laughter.
37 I told Gary that earlier this year I told my class about my Dad, and about his health struggles. One student asked, in all sincerity, “Mr. Harrington, how old is your Dad?” Without blinking I said, “Sixty-two!”
38 I appreciated the silence following my answer. It made me feel that I still have years and years left to enjoy going into the classroom every day.
39 It is indeed a passion, as well as a calling.
40 Last night I spent the evening with others who feel the same exact way.
41 And every one of us could see that same exact passion in the eyes of younger teachers. They look to us for hope. We look to them for hope.
42 Because they are teachers, and we who have been there recognize the ones who have that passion. It jumps at you. It is alive, and burning. It’s on their faces. It’s in their eyes. It’s in their souls..
43 It’s still out there, like you will never believe.
44 Teachers aren’t different ages. We are all kindred spirits with hope of lighting the way for students, and for experiencing what my own daughter Nicole calls the “click”: the moment when the light turns on in a student.
45 There are no bubble tests, assessments, data, or anything else that can describe that; passionate teachers know instinctively when that takes place.
46 Nicole is every bit a veteran teacher now.
47 Next year is her third consecutive year teaching in a bona-fide district. And I have seen her mature and thrive as a passionate young teacher.
48 There is an entire army of younger teachers out there. The strongest and best will survive.
49 And there is a younger generation out there that is full of fighters, and full of young people filled with hope.
50 It’s good to see.
51 I stand proud of that generation, and I am about to step aside and let them take the torch. They are worthy of that trust.
52 I gottago. You keep fighting too. We all simply must. Gottago now.
53 Thanks for listening.
54 Peace.
~H~
