CRAZY TALK:
i was reading ben's blog this morning, and i realized that i actually missed teaching in the delta. if educational inequity is really the civil-rights issue of our generation (and i believe that it is), then what am i doing teaching where i am? i'm contributing nothing to the lives of my students. they all just think that i'm the wacky liberal woman who yammers on at them about books that they don't like; nothing that i say is taken seriously - all i do is make them mad. and what the hell am i doing teaching in a rural area anyway, when i moved back home to teach in my city, to make a difference in the lives of urban students, to help revitalize a dying community?
our local representatives of the judy girls (my mom, her sisters, my grandmother and the female cousins in our family) were having a discussion about how to save the town that we live in. we're dying right now. most of the corporate employees of our local fortune-500 company are moving into the outlying areas (thank you, thank you, urban sprawl) and/or sending their children to private schools; our tax-base to fund our schools has shifted to outside the city limits. businesses within the city are closing - walmarts, new suburban malls, and online shopping have taken over. i took a walk around my neighborhood the other day - i live about two blocks from the university in town - and all i saw was trash. literally. broken beer bottles and plastic cups, papers flying around. our home is becoming a wasteland.
but we have a plan. here are the basics:
- all city employees, board members, etc. (including teachers) should live within the city limits and send their children to public schools - my contribution
- public transportation should be free
- incentives should be provided by the big corporations to their employees that would support them living in the city, as opposed to the suburbs
- grants for new businesses that have a desire to open in the city
any other ideas? we're thinking of getting a committee together (we're fairly well-connected) and approaching the city council and the papers and whatnot.