Bring back the joy

Re: the concept of joyless schools for the already joy-deprived (read “common core”, “rigor”, “grit”, “standardization”, “raising the bar”…you know, the things those with death grips on obscene wealth do when they refuse to acknowledge the power of equity in building a nation strong in moral fiber and character-not just equipped with data warehouses, drones, and nuclear powered aircraft carriers)...

This is the one thing that has me questioning the value of “hanging in there” as a teacher.

Joy is already so lacking in the lives of a growing number of children coming into public school classrooms-and it is more and more evident in the youngest kids. Once upon a time you had to wait for the jaded adolescent to maybe give up and grow distrustful of adults and distance themselves from peers. But the failure of trickle down economics policy to work, and the refusal of those in power (on BOTH sides of “the aisle”) to admit this failure and their own reasons for sticking with it, has led to a deteriorating morale and deteriorating economic and emotional security that DOES trickle down…right into and onto the hearts and heads of our youngest students

The privileged and pompous who would offer themselves as fit to reform the rest of us need to have their power and privilege taken away.

When true equity in opportunity becomes the goal; when we stop revering “investors and job creators” that have done little more the raze the public commons; when bankers, lobbyists and politicians are as accountable as the rest of us; when the middle class families that made this country great are employed and empowered to be at home to model, guide, love and tuck their children in at night…

Well then, our nation will truly thrive and joy will return to our schools-not just those cushy charters and private schools-but ones like the one I teach at and my girls attend as well!

I hope they live to see it.