This teacher left a powerful comment about how he
became
educated about real life by teaching. The myths
he had learned in
his youth fell away when confronted
by the children whose lives are
burdened by poverty.
Please tweet this comment. It should go viral.
Add your
voice. This reader said in a comment: “People harass me
for talking about poverty all the time. I come from a middle
class,
white family, and I was sheltered away from the
poor and needy. I
attended a middle class and upper
class private school just south
of Detroit. “After
teaching in public schools since the late 90’s
(and
having never walked in one until I began to teach), I now the
see the world I was sheltered from. It is a world of poverty.
“I
agree that people should be responsible, but when
the game is
rigged, even responsible people falter in
finding work. Once the
jobs are gone, families suffer,
and this seemingly “responsible
behavior” becomes a
smoke and mirrors argument. “Public schools
essentially
saved me from the closed mindedness that comes from
this conservative mindset. I understand now what we need. We
need
strong public services (including education),
strong labor unions,
and a government not run by
corporations. “Shame on my family for
raising me to
believe I was something special, and everybody else
was
not because they were not willing to work as hard as I was.
What a crock.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/18/1111575/-Two-Americas”
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
We need to start organizing state by state and community by community protests coupled with voting for candidates who support public ed.
On Thursday, August 22, The Philadelphia Daily News published my article that shares these same sentiments with regards to working with impoverished students in an impoverished school district, amidst contentious contract negotiations.
http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20130822_How_will_budget_proposals_help_schools_and_students_.html
Jeff Rosenberg
Yeh, I think I is very wrong with that so many parents act as if their children are “better” or more deserving than that others. That is at the root of what is wrong we the this country. But so many seem to thrive.on competition. That breeds condescension and greed. It feeds into the mindset that money can buy status. We have false notions of self-worth. When it is all said and done, I am afraid we will be surprised to see how wrong this attitude is. But it is already too late. I thought we were all in this together, but we really aren’t.
I don’t see how they can keep a straight face when you tell them that every child should receive the same quality of education that they want for their own kids. The problem is that many of them pay enormous amounts, up to nearly $40,000 per child, for the education that they seek, yet they want poor children to get by on one fifth of that and still get the same results. Right.
Teachers such as the author of this post need to run for office!
This is exactly how a sheltered young prince began his journey to enlightenment and became the Buddah. Our modern religions tell us one thing—-compassion for the less fortunate—our politicians another. During a post viewing discussion of the PBS film “Values Go to School”, one teacher from an extremely privileged private school spoke of the difficulty of challenging the thinking of these uber rich students—how important it was to let them to peer over their secure wall of privilege.
If they don’t peer over their secure wall, it may some day be ripped down for them. Imagine current trends, and what will happen if we reach 50 plus percent poverty? Do we really think anarchy can’t happen here? The wealthy do think they are better. We want to believe the myth that anyone can become rich if they work hard enough, the game called our economy is in fact rigged.