Are You a Good Little Soldier?

CAT Tracks Editor's Note:

In education, as with all institutions, there have always been and there will always be both...

...it is called human nature.

I speak from experience...

...I have been both.

During my early years as a teacher, if the principal/superintendent said jump, my response was the proverbial "how high?"

Then came 1978...

...when Cairo had its first teachers' strike.

I "walked the line" as a nonmember because I thought it was the right thing to do.

What followed was not pretty...

...and it remains to this day in Cairo School District Number One.

Oh, fortunately, CSD #1 is currently in a state of cease-fire, brought about by a five-year monetary blood-bath. This shaky era-of-good-feelings was marked by the departure of HWSRN (who didn't start the war, but continued it with relish, an indication that the presiding superintendent is not the disease, only a symptom.) How long will the lull remain? Being the eternal pessimist (for good reason), all I will venture: "Savor the moment!"

Yes, there is a song for the occasion, well, a line anyway...

...from Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart. CATs (since 1978) have been "living in a powder keg and giving off sparks."

Hey, got five strikes, several lawsuits, and innumerable grievances to prove it!

So...

Viva Détente!

Okay, I have digressed. My bad. Reading about "rabble-rousers" strikes a familiar chord with this old CAT!

Back to good soldiers versus rabble-rousers...

Good soldiers by definition don't need protection (although if the history of labor-management relations in CSD #1 have shown anything, it is that a "good soldier" is definitely in the eye of the beholder. Many a "good soldier" has bitten the dust when the administration changed.)

Another brief digression...

...related to my transgression of 1978.

Back in the day, I was on the cutting edge of technology, using an overhead projector to deliver my sage-on-the-stage words of wisdom. I was praised by my principal for the rapt attention paid by my students. That was in 1977, when I was a "good soldier", before I dared buck the system. Two years later - same principal, different climate - I was a bad teacher for using the overhead projector and lecturing to students.

Is it any wonder that many teachers respond to the latest directives from on high (no matter how silly they may be) with a unspoken refrain of "Yes, Massa!"

Rabble-rousers are the ones likely to be fired...

...they are the messengers to be "killed".

Hence, the birth of teacher tenure, a protective shield against administrators bent on punishment and retribution for challenges to their authority. (One of my favorite quotes from my aforementioned principal: "I have the power of God over you!")

And one wonders why teachers decided they needed a union in Cairo?

It is also why I get so incensed at efforts to erode this vital protection...

...when the "good little soldiers" (lately with the support and "leadership" of the IEA and the NEA) side with the powers that be against their more outspoken colleagues.

Well, hell, righteous indignation sayeth the Ron!

Hey, don't want to listen to me? Then, y'all better damn well bide the warnings of Edmund Burke, George Santayana, and many, many more who have uttered some variation of:

"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it."

Otherwise, mind the advice of Mr. T:

"Pity the fool."

Okay, I'm done...