Hello there!
Roaming Roaster here. This being the first post, I feel explanations are in order. Said explanations, quite logically, will begin with the above photograph. Wandering in Paris last summer I was compelled to capture the facade of this establishment. "The American Dream." A bar slash entertainment club drawing in the masses via bright blinking lights and life sized figurines of those three exemplars of the American Dream: Elvis, Eric Estrada, and the Blues Brothers. Leaving the perplexing decision to include Eric Estrada in this trifecta of American pop culture aside, I was particularly struck by the commercialization of that coveted phrase, "The American Dream." What struck me initially was the fact that I was struck in the first place. Living in this country, the commercialization of anything should, at this point, have long ceased causing surprise. But some vestige of sacredness remains in the old American dream idea, for me, and that tiny trace of hope lies solely in the promise of public education. The promise that if you work hard, stay in school, and go to college, that, eventually, you will get your due. This of course presupposes that you are all working hard in schools that propel students toward bright futures at equal rates, with equal resources to do so. No matter what the battle is for – equality, liberty, democracy, some other big time social battle that ends in y – the battle’s outcome will be determined by the quality of education offered to our nation’s young people. And if the quality of education varies, so will the degree to which we achieve equality, liberty, democracy, and other y words.
America mustering up the moxie to pull together and actually make this happen seems about as likely as walking through the streets of Paris, deep in thought, and looking up to face a giant reproduction of Eric Estrada.
One thing that might increase the likelihood of this collective mustering is a united community of teachers with a strong political voice. Another thing is a general public that is aware of what actually happens inside public schools on a daily basis. This blog, and the meetings with teachers in various school districts upon which it is based, is an effort toward both those ends. I hope you will read it, and join the growing network of activists around the country working to save our public schools before public education is so abysmal and so unequal that it no longer supports a functional democracy, and the American Dream is just some cheesy bar in Paris.
