"Fifty years ago, on Feb. 1, four black college students sat down at a whites-only Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C. The 'Greensboro Four,' along with friends and supporters, returned to the counter every day for six months until the lunch counter was desegregated." -NPR
Sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands. Sometimes you have to say “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.” Sometimes you have to stand up and be counted.
Today is that day.
Every now and then things come together. Separate things that mull around in the vast spaces of our most complex and amazing organ. Things that until that moment are completely and specifically unconnected, until one moment when it all comes together. You might call it a perfect storm.
The new semester has started. A swarm of new faces, young and old, mothers and fathers, somebody’s child. They have names, those faces. Names and personalities and histories. They all arrive on the first day of class ready to learn. Ready to grow. Ready to make a difference in the world.
Only there isn’t a seat in the classroom.
Sixty-two of them stood in front of me the other day. Sixty-two of them who wanted a seat in class. Wanted to learn, to grow, to make a difference. Sixty-two of them who wanted to be educated. Sixty-two students for a class that only could hold 45.
It was a scene that occurred all over campus that day; in every department, every building and every classroom. Students who needed classes, wanted classes, had to have classes to graduate and there was not a seat to be had.
The cuts are bad. Real bad. And I’m angry.
My friend’s children were out of school last week. A furlough, they call it. A furlough is “a layoff, especially a temporary one, from a place of employment.” On furlough days there are no students. There is no instruction. There are no classes, no opportunities to learn and to grow. Furlough days hurt our children.
On furlough days there is no work for the teachers and the principals and the janitors. No work equals no pay. Furlough days hurt our families, our friends and our neighbors.
It’s a mess and it’s wrong. Really wrong. And I wanted to do something. But what? And then I read this.
So I wrote a letter.
Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,
I am angry.
I am a mother of two school age children, a wife of a school administrator, a social worker and a college professor. We have a mortgage, a car payment and school tuitions to pay. We don’t take vacations or buy frivolous things. In fact, we are barely making it.
We believe that there is no greater gift that we can give our kids than a quality education. Our parents gave that to us. Good teachers who were passionate about what they did taught us. We played in the band, participated in sports, acted in the school plays and checked out books at the library. We went to college. Sure, we took out loans and worked second jobs but we got the classes we needed and we graduated in 4 years with a degree that helped us take our place as productive members of society.
This was important to our parents. It was a value we held dear. What happened?
The schools have cut music and art and theater. The libraries are closing. Teachers are asked to do more with less and are no longer judged by the quality of their teaching abilities, but by an impersonal series of tests that cannot begin to measure the connection the teacher makes with the child.
And now they are cutting days for instruction.
At the colleges where I teach, the students cannot get classes. The schedules have been cut so dramatically that on the first day of classes I had 62 students trying to get a seat in a 45-person class. Their tuition has gone up and because of budget cuts; they cannot get the classes they need to graduate in 4 years. The parents and students must shoulder an additional financial burden, a fifth and sometimes sixth year of college education for their child.
The teachers are tired and frustrated and disillusioned.
We have been forced into furloughs, which is a fancy way of saying that we’ve had our pay cut. Dramatically in many cases. I have lost 10% of my salary.
The district where my husband works no longer pays for health benefits for their employees. The school year will be shortened. Schools will be closed. More income will be lost. And yet our financial obligations remain the same.
Life has become very, very difficult.
You and your colleagues were elected to represent the people. People like us. People who are doing their best to raise their children and give them an opportunity to succeed in this crazy world.
I don’t feel represented.
Our children are our greatest assets. Don't sacrifice their future.
I don’t know if it will make a difference. I don’t know if it will even make it to the Governor’s desk. I’m not naïve enough to think that one letter will change the world. But it’s something.
We need to be willing to take action.
If we each did one small thing. If every one of us were willing to be counted. To stand up for what we believe in. Like those four black college students who sat that day, 50 years ago, at the whites-only counter at Woolworth's in Greensboro North Carolina. If every one of us stood up and said “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it any more?”
Who knows what could happen then.
