Florida today is ground zero for the radical right's war on education, freedom of speech, and outright censorship, played out at every level from kindergarten to higher education by race-hustling, self-aggrandizing neo-fascists like Ron DeSantis and Christopher Rufo, aided an abetted by the willing dupes of Moms for Lunacy.
The administrative leadership in Florida's school districts has been seemingly cowed by this onslaught of State power, perhaps because the addiction to high salaries and great perks has become more important than the welfare of students to far too many of them. They seem, most days, to be in a race to see who can ban the most books or fire the most teachers (including substitutes) for exercising freedom of speech.
Likewise, the Florida teachers' union seems to be a theater of unearthly silence, which does make one wonder why it is still collecting dues out of its members' paychecks if it is not going to be their voice.
But in the long run, it is Florida teachers who will emerge (with or without their union) to lead the movement to re-infuse the soul of education and resistance to race-hustling fascism in the Sunshine State's schools.
How do I know that? Because they've done it before.
It's more than worth spending the $2.99 for a Kindle copy of Michael Gengler's We Can Do It: A Commmunity Takes on the Challenge of School Desegregation to discover the story of how teachers, attorneys, and community members in Alachua County and Gainesville came together in the 1960s to make integration work in the public schools.
It is not a neat, pretty story because such processes are rarely even neat and pretty. There are stumblings and ugly moments. But the picture that emerges is of teachers having a leadership role in helping their community get it right in implementing the mandates of Brown v Board of Education.
Things could have gone the other way back in 1964, because there were enough radical right race-hustling fascists out there in state government back then to tilt the balance.
It wasn't an easy time for those teachers, as Gengler tells us:
When the Supreme Court ordered Alachua County to fully desegregate student bodies and facilities in February 1970, the schools had to make major changes in curriculum, extracurricular activities, music programs, and so on. The secondary schools also had to respond to episodic but serious outbreaks of on-campus violence.
And he adds,
When problems arose, either from whites or blacks, the administrators, teachers, parents, and students, unprepared, would have to step up and show as much generosity of spirit and courage as was needed to overcome them. On the front lines of these changes were the teachers. Overarching all other lessons to be learned from this story, in my opinion, is the thinness of their resources and the strength of their dedication to public education.
This is a story worth reading, not just to celebrate that generosity of spirit and dedication of an event no forty years removed, but to realize that we can recapture it.
There were devout segregationists in power in this period, as there are radical right race-hustling, gay-baiting neo-fascists creating this crisis today FOR THEIR OWN POLITICAL PROFIT.
It used to be a given in America that you could assume good intentions on the other side of nearly any issue.
This is no longer true.
But it can be.
I am reminded of the words of Science Fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, who later became something of an mascot for right-wing libertarians and conservatives, but who wrote for a national audience in 1948 his essay This I Believe:
I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime. Yet for every criminal, there are ten thousand honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime.
I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses, in the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land. I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones.
If we remember to be these people, if we remember to believe in and support Florida teachers they will rise to the challenge -- again! -- to defeat the forces of darkness.
DO NOT F*CK with FLORIDA TEACHERS.
No comments:
Post a Comment