Webmaster’s Note: This is an excerpt of Freddie’s 24th blog for the Huffington Post, which appeared there on 13 August 2012. There is a link to the entire HuffPost at the bottom of this summary. Freddie especially appreciates it when comments are left at Huffington Post about his pieces there. The number of comments makes a difference in readership. To comment, you can log in using your Facebook, Twitter and several other social network accounts. Or create a HuffPost account. See links in upper right of any HuffPo page.
Here are excerpts from Freddie’s latest Huffington Post blog:
Raising the awareness of America and its local communities to the role of the teacher is the Gershon family’s little way of stepping forward and up to the plate to tap into our greatest resource, viz.: teachers who have not been beaten down by the system; teachers who have not been made to feel that they are part of a society which pays you more only because you’ve “lasted longer” through seniority or keeps you employed because your kids score better on tests through cramming and jamming info into their memory banks… (at least just long enough to take the test!) That is not what teaching is all about. That is not learning.
This past month was the Freddie “G” Weekend. (An annual Gershons-sponsored all-expenses-paid weekend of theater workshops for eight outstanding teachers. See photo above.) The tear-provoking moment for me was to hear teachers thank me just for asking them what they thought and for listening to what they have to say and for creating programs and materials that address their needs and by being responsive to what they see, touch and feel. Their sensibilities on the pulse of America’s youth are more important than anyone sitting in an ivory towered university or on some committee in Washington. Teachers work within the system that America utilizes to educate its young people. Who listens to them… to their observations?
Myrna and I will not live to see the results of what we have initiated. We will leave it as a direction to go and because this is still the land of the free, we’re free to do what we want to do without navigating the bureaucracy of school boards or community boards. This is also the home of the brave… and teachers are brave. This land is your land. This land is your kids’ land. Let’s not leave it scorched land. Renew the promise of America. Keep the melting pot going… The streets were never paved with gold, but with golden opportunities. Mining it through stimulating kids and nurturing them is not a quick fix. Politicians want “quick.” The gold is in our kids and the teachers who mentor them.
Leave no teacher behind.
Click here to see the entire blog at the Huffington Post site.