My wife concluded her third chemo treatment on Monday and now has three more sessions to go and a round of radiation. Even after all of this and a year of herceptin infusions, will she have beaten cancer? I pray that she does.
OK. So where are you going with this? Some of you have read the title of this latest blog post and now are scratching your head. No. I am going in a certain direction here. Follow with me.
I am still reminded daily of when Kim's doctor broke the news to us in his office. You have cancer. His next response was to the point. Surgery. Next week. Not next month. Not three months from now. Next week. I have to say, Kim's doctor was a man of action.
In her first visit to the cancer center at Norton. We were introduced to a doctor who put it all on the table. Expectations. Goals. Hope. When I left the meeting room, I felt like I had partner right beside me. A brother in arms who was just as determined to see my wife whip this terrible disease.
So what bearing does this have on education? Plenty.
Instead of talking heads in Washington, Richmond or points in between, we need people who don't talk a plan of action but sets the wheels in motion to get something done. Instead of drones who carry out the the orders of the talking heads, we need brothers in arms, comrades who will step up to the plate for students, teachers, staff and administration who are in this fight for education success together.
I have heard over and over that teamwork wins games. I used to preach it to my volleyball teams when I was coaching. You have to work together. You have to have a game plan to make a statement. Even if you lose, you want your opponent to come away saying, we're going to have to do better next time if we are going to beat them.
If we can rally strangers together, who have never met before to unite and join forces to fight one of the most terrible diseases known to man, why can't we do the same in education? It's like being a movie star, when you are in a hit movie, you have done all that the studio and the press have asked of you, you are a star. You are patted on the back and told how good you are but make a mistake or fall short on your next project and you are a has been. You are typecast as a a good teacher but not quite good enough. So, I guess those teachers who don't get that two point pickup on the SOL tests from the previous year are education's version of Lindsay Lohan.
Sitting in the cancer center on Monday, I read an article that Hollywood was up in arms over the lackluster summer box office returns for 2010 and the disappointing movies that had come out. Many felt it was the end of the world. Billions of dollars lost.
The same can be said of education. Billions of dollars lost on a broken system that needs fixing fast. Our government can financially help General Motors and Chrysler, corrupt financial institutions with a plan of "reinvestment" but can't get it together or even see the big picture to help education.
It's a sad state of affairs.
No comments:
Post a Comment