This morning I awaken, and before checking my phone, reading my notifications, taking in the things that all the cyber friends I've encountered over the last few years are saying, thinking and doing... I pause.
I pause this morning in gratitude for what has been and what's to come.
I pause because weathering a storm is always sobering and what one learns within the storm must be taken apart carefully so as not to lose a single lesson. I am grateful for the storm that brought me here, and I am grateful for the knowing peace that things are about to shift for GOOD, for JUSTICE, for SOLIDARITY, for RESPECT, for AUTHENTIC ACTION for those I serve... and most of all... for LOVE!
LOVE? Looking in Ourselves and Visioning Excellence! Yes LOVE.
I said it. I said the "L" work-- that four letter word that so many can not speak of in business, in finance, in the "dog eat dog" world we pretend to exist in.
This is not a 'DOG EAT DOG" WORLD!
Today I declare it.
I declare that with goodness, and ethical, righteous action you can bring about positive shifts that benefit ALL. Price Pritchett, whose books I've read for almost a decade gave this little quote to the world:..
"When you hold out for high standards, people are impressed-but they don't always like you for it. Not everybody will be on your side in your struggle to do what's right and ethical. In fact, sometimes even you won't be on your side. You'll wrestle with inner conflict, torn between what you should do and what you want to do. You'll also aggravate other people. Seems when you walk the straight and narrow you always step on someone's toes. Don't count on the ethics of excellence to make you popular."
This may well sum up my last two years of service as executive officer of the Broward Teachers Union.
There is no need now to go into the details of those "journeyings" (new word - HA! Yes... I can make up new words if I want to! Why? Because language is a living thing. That's why! :-) but they have taught me that to stand in your vision of excellence- to stand in your vision of ethics, is no easy task. but last night--in steadfast courage--I understood the meaning of THAT!
WE WON! Broward Teachers Union will have a new beginning. BTU NEW U is HERE!
It can not be taken from us.
We earned it.
With egg in our eyes, and mud on our face... WE earned it!
Long ago, as a 17 year old freshman at Brigham Young University-- don't ask... it's a long story-- I walked into the religion class of my professor, a man on the verge of becoming one of the "GREAT ONES!" His name was Stephen R. Covey, the acclaimed best selling author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People I stood in the doorway in the back of the room where there was standing room only. He was a popular professor. But how was I to know that his books and thinking would come to influence a generation of business people around the globe, and one day... change and shift my internal workings forever?
I couldn't possibly have known!
But as a young entrepreneur, I always remembered the most important of his theories which is that in any business deal it has to be WIN/WIN.
That's the strategy to success, he says... every deal has to be WIN/WIN or no deal.
WIN/WIN or NOOOOOOO DEAL!!!!!!
I live by that--as a wife, a mother, a businesswoman, an educator, a leader--I live by that!
Living by that was rather simple, really, until two years ago when I got thrown, by a serendipitous chance meeting on the internet, to Badass Teachers Association Co Founder, Priscilla Sanstead. I began to research this oddly named group, that for reasons I could not then understand did not seem to be very happy with Bill Gates. Bill Gates. Why would anyone not like Bill Gates?
I had to find out for myself why this international icon and philanthropist was being criticized.
Slowly, over a few weeks, I began to realize that my profession, the teaching profession, was under assault in ways I had never imagined, and Bill Gates was somehow involved in an educational reform movement that was impoverishing public schools, giving public funds over to private investors who promoted things like standardized testing to rate students, school and teachers. These tests would then identify "failing schools" aka "failing" communities, where quickly and swiftly (See the New Orleans Katrina Hurricane Crisis for details) educational "reform" would be brought in to save the day with the fast and furious takeover of "school choice." aka Charter Schools.
These schools are given taxpayer funds, and often have little regulation to flourish "freely" while public schools are held to impossible to meet demands created by individuals who know nothing about teaching and learning and have spent little if any time in a classroom. Instantly I knew... this "educational reform" as they were calling it... was not a WIN/WIN for KIDZ.
There is so much more to the story... but that brings me to where I need to get you! Win/Win or NOOOO DEAL! That is how life has to be lived. I knew then the answer for me had to be "NO DEAL!" And, I thank Stephen R. Covey in his infinite wisdom for instilling that concept in me at an early age.
Through my association with Badass Teachers Association, I began to learn things about education policy and money schemes that I wish I had never known. These inter-relationships that laws like NCLB and RITT have encouraged are not, in my mind a WIN/WIN for the future of education, KIDZ, or our tax dollars.
My Badass mentor soon connected me with hundreds --thousands-- of educators around the globe who saw what I saw, and were talking about how to fix it. I'm verrrrry solutions oriented, so I became instantly engaged in an online communications system that allowed me to pick the brains of some ofthe brightest educators in this nation. WOW! How grateful was I? Very!
Soon enough, I stumbled on to the brilliant thinking and writings of Mark Naison, PhD, Professor of African Studies at Fordham University and Co Founder of Badass Teachers Association. His ways of seeing the fight for educational integrity intrigued me, engaged me, and I was hooked on the notion that CHANGE was needed and through our actions could come.
I have to thank Mark Naison and Priscilla Sandstead and their work, determination, writings, musings, humor and definitive belief that it must be WIN?WIN or no DEAL for education, and KIDZ.
Because of their influence I was somehow led onto the world of union politics where now I stand.
I am now in it, so it has to be WIN/WIN or nor deal.
I am not sure what that means, or where this road will take me or you, or any of the warriors fighting this with me, like my allies from the BTU NEW ACTION 4 MEMBERS SLATE who won last night in a landslide victory, taking seven... yes 7... seats on the Broward Teachers Union Executive Board--insuring CHANGE and WIN/WIN strategies, and Badass knowings of TRUTH to POWER will be planted like newly planted seeds in the warm fertile soil of the Sunshine State, and blossom into the teacher awakening a strong group of national activists, education professional, parents, KIDZ and researchers have been dreaming of and standing for, for some time now! An educational WIN/WIN.
I believe it is possible. I believe it has to come. I believe the time is now, and I believe we are ready for this shift in Educational Consciousness. Much like author of A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle, speaks of the "flowering of human consciousness," which he believes is happening now as we each awaken to our purpose, I believe that Educational Consciousness awakens NOW to its purpose, and its purpose is KIDZ!
:-) MzP ^o^
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