More Coffee, Please

I wasn’t there, but from what I hear, the teacher’s union made a very good decision tonight.

I very firmly believe the bulk of the public supports education and wants to see a fair wage for the people who provide it. The only way I can reconcile what I believe with what I’ve seen is to think they’re terribly confused—that in many cases, they’ve been misled by people with an agenda who are in no way interested in telling the truth.

Even worse, the people fond of lying are very well organized, and very intrenched. The same people who force “the Pledge”¹ are supporters of organizations like the Monadnock Taxpayer’s Association, and they have plenty of avenues to get the word out.

So the worse thing in the world that could have happened was a decision to go to “work to rule.” We’ve done that already, and I stood outside with everyone else while the cars pulled in. But that was to get the School Board to the negotiating table, and I don’t think it’s what we want to do when our main problem seems to be letting the public know why it’s important teachers are fairly paid.² This time it’s the School Board and the budget committee who are supportive—we need to get the word out so everyone knows why a contract is vital to good education.

The tricky part is finding a way to do that.

So today the Union took a firm forward step to be proactive and to put together a public relations team in order to find ways to get teachers—and their students—more involved in the public life of the district. Considering the principles of First Amendment schools and our duty to prepare our kids for a lifetime of citizenship, it sounds like something we should have been doing long ago.

I mean, honestly, is there a single reason a 9th grade student taking Civics should not be at a school board meeting? Shouldn’t Student Government meetings be attended by classes studying Robert’s Rules? There are half a million ways that teachers should be working—at all grade levels and all schools—to get more people involved in what goes on.

I find it amusing we’ll give students credit for attending a play, but not for going to something civics related. Um…huh?

I like this direction—I like the idea of not only letting the public know what the challenges are but also getting the students more involved in being a member of a democracy. After all, what else are we here for?

So—I’m hoping this is a good, positive step forward. Now what I want to hear is a great deal of talk about a special election to get this mistake fixed.

1 A “pledge” many NH communities asked the state legislators to ignore in the recent elections. ↺

2 Sadly, Christ’s admonition to not wander from house to house in Luke 10:7 is not enough. The laborer is worthy of his hire, no matter what some members of the community feel. ↺

Gregarious

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