We interupt your regularly scheduled blog...

Rest assured, faithful readers, that I am reading a new book, and I will let you all now about that later...however, I'm listening to a segment on NPR right now, and I wanted to share it all with you.

In a city in Mexico (that sounds like Wahaca, but that probably has a bunch of X's in it), a group of teachers were marching in protest of low wages. (Sounds reasonable, right?) So, in response, the police in the city got in their helicopters and flew over head, not so that they could get a better view of the peaceful protesters, but in order to have a better view for when they dropped TEAR GAS on the peaceful protesters. Now. That in itself would be worthy of note...however, that is not why I am writing a post on blogger. The aspect of this story that inspired me to write this post was the response by the parents in this particular town.

A group of mothers, who felt that this treatment of the teachers by the police, was SO unjust and wrong, gathered together to march as well. In fact, not only did they march for the cause of the teachers....they came upon a television studio that was filming--LIVE. So, they entered the tv station, they took control of the tv station, and the broadcast their protest over the airwaves in defense of the teachers and in hopes that they could win higher wages for their teachers.

Now, I don't believe in taking hostages, I don't believe in pirating tv stations; however...I do think it's AMAZING the level of support that those parents showed towards their teachers.

I have been really, really lucky in that every member of my family respects and supports me as a teacher. My mom and stepdad are teachers, my sister's both are supporters of teachers (they teacher piano, cheerleading and dance) and my dad has said that teaching is the most important job in the world. So, you know, I've got a substantial backing from my family. However, I've had so many colleagues and Education students tell me stories of how they've been told that they should be doing something "more productive" with their lives....that they shouldn't be wasting their obvious talent and skill being "just a teacher"; it's sad, it's inappropriate, and it's patently false.

So, it struck me...in Mexico, teachers are seen as something...special...something worthy of standing up for. In America? Well, it's not quite so consistant, the value we place in teachers.

That's just kind of sad.

Thanks for reading...

Tommy