I Learned Everything I Need to Know in Kindergarten

Today was a really great day. While we waited for the rally to start, we decided to go to the Holocaust Museum. It was a truly moving and emotional sight as we passed by thousands of shoes that were taken from Jews before they went to camps and photographs of everyday life before Jews were sent away to hell.
After a few tears shed there, we proceeded on to the Ellipse, where over a dozen different activists, artists, and everyday teachers spoke about what it meant to be in Washington today. Matt Damon even made a guest appearance, minus a lot of hair on his head. There were sentiments that teachers were under appreciated and under paid and that corporate America had no business being involved in education. One speaker called for merit pay of legislators based on their performance in Congress, which received many laughs and cheers from the audience. Signs peppered the crowd and read "Arnie DunCAN'T" and "Our Kids Are Not Test Scores". There were even small children who were holding up signs protesting high stakes testing and "teaching to the test". After the rally, we all began to march around the Ellipse, all the way past the White House, in case Barack and anyone else in there was looking outside.
What amazed me about this rally and march was the sense of community shared by all of these educators and supporters of education. There were delegations from almost every state in the union and no matter who you saw, they were willing to share a conversation, an encouragement, or simply just a smile with you. Wisconsin had the largest delegation by far and everyone looked to them as a rallying point, as an example of how poorly teachers can be treated and the lack of respect many of them receive. These professionals are not in it for the glory, the money, the fame. They simply want the best for future generations and because of that, they deserve the upmost respect. Yes, there were specific demands made at this rally, such as funding public schools and not charter schools and allowing educators to educate children as opposed to teaching for high test scores. But I also think that this was about respect, to show that this group of people would not stand idly by as people who have never been involved in education try to dictate to them the best way to foster success in schools.
Another fascinating point was that this was almost completely non-partisan. Yes, teachers are typically known as liberals or leaning more to the left. But the people there today were just as upset with democrats as they were with republicans. They don't care who proposes what law or which party supports what testing system. They only want change to come around and it doesn't matter to them which side it comes from. Maybe Congress and the White House should go back to school and learn how to cooperate with each other again from their kindergarten grade teachers in this time of national crisis, and then maybe they should learn to appreciate those teachers and listen to them also.

For the Viewers at Home!

Ok I thought it would be a good idea to post the demands that the Save Our Schools organization are making at the White House. This is credit to saveourschoolsmarch.org and if you have the time, you should definitely go check it out!
For the future of our children, we demand:

Equitable funding for all public school communities

• Equitable funding across all public schools and school systems
• Full public funding of family and community support services
• Full funding for 21^st century school and neighborhood libraries
• An end to economically and racially re-segregated schools

An end to high stakes testing used for the purpose of student, teacher, and school evaluation

• The use of multiple and varied assessments to evaluate students, teachers, and schools
• An end to pay per test performance for teachers and administrators
• An end to public school closures based upon test performance

Teacher, family and community leadership in forming public education policies

• Educator and civic community leadership in drafting new ESEA legislation
• Federal support for local school programs free of punitive and competitive funding
• An end to political and corporate control of curriculum, instruction and assessment decisions for teachers and administrators

Curriculum developed for and by local school communities

• Support for teacher and student access to a wide-range of instructional programs and technologies
• Well-rounded education that develops every student’s intellectual, creative, and physical potential
• Opportunities for multicultural/multilingual curriculum for all students
• Small class sizes that foster caring, democratic learning communities

The Tie That Binds

Hello from D.C. Everyone!
We are back in the hotel room for the night and we have had a very eventful day. After arriving in Washington, we decided to go see some of the sites. Naturally, we went to the National Mall and the Smithsonian Museum. The monuments were just as monumental as always, but the museum was what intrigued me the most, particularly the Civil Rights exhibit. There was a direct reenactment of the sit-ins at Greensboro and photographs of the famous march on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. All of these images caused me to think about the American peoples' history of civil disobedience and the reasons behind disobedience. At first, it was to win freedom from an oppressive country, then we were disobedient to one another when sides could not agree during the Civil War. Women were disobedient so that they could finally gain suffrage and African Americans were disobedient so that they could gain political equality. In more recent years, we have been disobedient in order to show disapproval of wars, political philosophies, and bad economic policies. But what has been the common theme behind all of these disobediences? It is the hope that through our demonstrations and protests, some good will come from it and that the future will be better than the present. Now of course all of these instances do not carry the same weight as the others, but the goal behind them is a better life. And I strongly believe that this idea, the idea of a better future, the idea of hope is something that Americans will carry with them for generations to come. That is why we, the Save Our Schools participants, are here this weekend. We want more for our children, our grandchildren, and all future Americans and we want everyone to know it.

FIRST POST EVER!

Ok here is my explanation for blogging. Usually, I make fun of people who think themselves important enough to put all of their thoughts online and expect people to read them. HOWEVER, all this changed a few months ago when I mentioned to a professor that I was going to a march in Washington, D.C. and she said I should blog about it. I said "Sure!" and then said something to my grandmother (Sheryl) about possibly doing a blog, and then she proceeded to tell friends who claimed they wanted to follow the blog about D.C. Not wanting to disappoint adoring fans, I decided to start. This blog will not just be about the march alone. In January, I hope I will be leaving for Seville, Spain to study abroad for a few months. Through blogging, I will keep track of day to day activities and I can let multiple people know how I am doing at one time (namely my mother). So, now that you know what the dealio is, enjoy! I hope you find this blog informative and hopefully slightly entertaining!