For Teachers:

I had the privledge to listen to Tony Mullen, National Teacher of the Year, at this year's CEA Summer Leadership Convention at Mohegan Sun. I enjoyed listening to him speak overall, but this story really struck me:

“I was recently at a three day summit in Tennessee with a whole group of policy makers and governors and senators. And I listened to them for three days talk about their ideas on how to build a better school, how to develop a national curriculum, and how to make teachers more effective.

But as I listened to these politicians, policy makers, best selling authors, and Harvard professors, I realized there was one common denominator: none of them taught. None of them spent any time in the classroom, and none of them really understood what we go through every day as teachers. And one of the nice things about having a title, National Teacher of the Year, is that when you do go to such events, they bring you to table one. And you get to sit with some of the same people that just spoke.

And I have to say after two days my blood was kinda boiling, after I listened to it, because I realized that when we go to places as teachers, and people are talking, it’s almost as though we are invisible. We are allowed to come to some events as spectators, not players. And the teachers that were there at that confrence, and there was about thirty of us, were very much spectators at that confrence. So I sat back at my table, and I had listened to these individuals, most of them were at my table. I was actually sitting at a table with four governors, a United States Senator, and two best selling authors from Harvard University. And after they all got done, each one telling the other one how good they did, I sat there, and they said “what do you think?”

And I said, well I have a title too, National Teacher of the Year, I have several degrees, and I was wondering what it would take for me to be part of a group of policy makers that are going to restructure national health care. And if I could sit on a committee that not only would restructure national health care, but that I can also help write the procedures that doctors would use in the Emergency Room.

It got really quiet at the table right then, and the one governor, a former governor, from Florida, there was kinda a pregnant pause. I said, well yea I guess that’s kinda ludicrious isn’t it. I said yet I’ve heard here for the last two days, people who have never taught in a classroom, who have never taught a child, tell me how to teach. You think it’s ludicrious that I cannot sit on a committee that can tell doctors how to heal people and you know what it is. I’ve never worked in an Emergency Room, I’ve never treated a patient, so why is that the people here at this convention that are part of the the same group that are going to write the national standards for this country are not inviting teachers to the table. That’s what I told them at the table.

The next morning I was not at table one, for breakfast. "