FYI, I am on vacation in France. Yesterday we visited the palace at Versailles. The life of the royals was so sumptuous that it was obscene. For the first time, I viscerally understood the French Revolution. Injustice and inequity breed hostility, rage, and eventually it boils over.
I read my emails and will keep posting. I’m off now to see the sights.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Growing up in Linden New Jersey among a family (including my Mom) and neighbors (literally, all the adult men) who had fought in World War II defending “democracy”, I only began to see the “world” when I arrived at the University of Chicago in 1966 on scholarship. And even then, as I had to work various jobs (including construction) to get through school, I had a hard time grasping how enormous the privileges of most of my fellow students were. One of the Weatherman ladies at U of C was complaining (at age 19) that she couldn’t get her trust fund (of more than a million dollars, 1968 dollars!) until she was 22. (She wanted to devote all those dollars to the “revolution”).
It takes a while to absorb the obscene impact of class privilege and develop the rage we need to continue to fight on behalf of the working class and the poor. But it’s been a lifetime, and I’ve never regretted it since I left the street “in the shadow of the refinery…” (Standard Oil, now BP, Bayway New Jersey) and “down the road from the penitentiary” (Rahway) as Bruce Springsteen sung) and went on… Basically, we have to defeat the Versailles people. We can’t talk them out of their obscene ways of ruling and owning the world…
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Bonnes vacances! Enjoy every minute!!!
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Have a great vacation Diane!
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Thanks, Arthur and Mamie, will do. I am away but not out of touch. Still driving my partner crazy with blogging.
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We love you – quit blogging!
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Dear Diane,
I’m a daily reader of your blog. I am so grateful for the updates on the fight to save public education in America. I don’t know if you get replies to emails…
But if you do, I’d like to welcome you to France! I’m in Normandy for a year on a teaching exchange. I teach high school English in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and I switched jobs with a teacher at Lycée Gustave Flaubert in Rouen. If you’re coming to Rouen, I would so much like to say hello and thank you and Bienvenue! However I’m on vacation myself at the moment (the French school calendar has them aplenty!). I’m in the Dordogne River Valley, which is just about the most beautiful place on earth, I think. We’ll be back on the weekend, though we’re spending the last day of vacation in Paris at the opera, seeing Mozart’s The Magic Flute. We have had such a magical, wonderful year.
Welcome to France! And if you’re coming to Rouen (unlikely, probably!), please let me know. I would be so honored to meet you and share some of my family’s discoveries (cheeses, etc.)! And if you’d like to meet some French public school teachers, I’d be delighted to arrange that. My colleagues in the English Department here are fluent, of course–you’d never think they were French. They don’t have a Foreign Language Department at my school. They have an English Dept. (some 20 teachers), a German Department, a Spanish Department, Italian, Latin, etc. And in my region, students do debates in these languages plus Chinese, Japanese, Russian, etc.! Also, it’s probably not possible, but if you know where you might be on Sunday late morning or midday or late afternoon, I would be so delighted to meet you for a moment and give you a specialty of the Dordogne. Foie gras and walnuts are what they are most famous for. I’ll go buy some right this minute!
Thank you for all you do for American public education. Have a wonderful time in France! (It’s hard not to!)
Chris Cotton
________________________________________
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Chris Cotton,
Thank you for your generous offer. I was on a river cruise in Bordeaux and never got to Normandy. Next time!
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Dear Diane,
I’m a daily reader of your blog. I am so grateful for the updates on the fight to save public education in America. I don’t know if you get replies to emails…
But if you do, I’d like to welcome you to France! I’m in Normandy for a year on a teaching exchange. I teach high school English in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and I switched jobs with a teacher at Lycée Gustave Flaubert in Rouen. If you’re coming to Rouen, I would so much like to say hello and thank you and Bienvenue! However I’m on vacation myself at the moment (the French school calendar has them aplenty!). I’m in the Dordogne River Valley, which is just about the most beautiful place on earth, I think. We’ll be back on the weekend, though we’re spending the last day of vacation in Paris at the opera, seeing Mozart’s The Magic Flute. We have had such a magical, wonderful year.
Welcome to France! And if you’re coming to Rouen (unlikely, probably!), please let me know. I would be so honored to meet you and share some of my family’s discoveries (cheeses, etc.)! And if you’d like to meet some French public school teachers, I’d be delighted to arrange that. My colleagues in the English Department here are fluent, of course–you’d never think they were French. They don’t have a Foreign Language Department at my school. They have an English Dept. (some 20 teachers), a German Department, a Spanish Department, Italian, Latin, etc. And in my region, students do debates in these languages plus Chinese, Japanese, Russian, etc.! Also, it’s probably not possible, but if you know where you might be on Sunday late morning or midday or late afternoon, I would be so delighted to meet you for a moment and give you a specialty of the Dordogne. Foie gras and walnuts are what they are most famous for. I’ll go buy some right this minute!
Thank you for all you do for American public education. Have a wonderful time in France! (It’s hard not to!)
Chris Cotton
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Hi Diane,
This is Chris Cotton again. Same guy as above. I was just thinking I’d love to bring a present to you and I could leave it at your hotel desk. I would be delighted to bring you a little package from the Dordogne. My email is cotton_c@shaker.org if you would be willing to accept a little thank you from a fan responsible for quite a few of your 20 million views!
Chris
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“Your Highness, the students have no joy.”
“Then let them eat tests.”
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Enjoy your well-deserved break!
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Have a great trip! Swing by Italy and visit Reggio Emilia if you want to see real education!
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Enjoy!
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That’s exactly how I felt in Vienna last summer! Obscene is the word for it.
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You are amazing, Diane! A year out from massive knee surgery, you’re touring France, and STILL fighting the good fight! I am in awe. Have a wonderful trip!
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I hope you enjoy your R&R, Diane!
I second the suggestion that you visit Reggio Emilia, Italy, (which is what my icon here is all about) because they have the most extraordinary model of project based learning in Early Childhood Education (ECE) in the world. However, you’d have to call ahead and try to use your influence to get in, because they don’t just let folks drop on by.
While you are in France, maybe you can check out how they do socialized ECE there? http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2012/11/socialist_child_care_in_europe_creche_ecole_maternelle_and_french_child.single.html
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Via la France 🌸😎🍷
I think that is ok to say
Have fun and thank you for all of your wonderful support
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Well deserved.
Enjoy.
😎
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You deserve this! You deserve this! Have a magnificent time! Eat dessert first!
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Have a wonderful time!
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“The life of the royals was so sumptuous that it was obscene.”
A sample of the new 21st Century Royalty:
19 Crazy Facts About Bill Gates’ $123 Million Washington Mansion
http://www.businessinsider.com/19-crazy-facts-about-bill-gates-house-2014-11
With $42 billion and seven homes, why are the Kochs buying our democracy?
Billionaire Eli Broad’s House
http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/billionaire-eli-broads-house/
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🙂
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Relax and enjoy Diane. And take care of your knees. Stay away from clumsy oafs who step on your feet. 🙂
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Have a much deserved vacation!
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Catch a big one, Diane 😉
Dan
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No on deserves it more… take a real break…let someone else run the show for a while.
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Bon appetit! Enjoy. If you’re a lover of bread and pastry, be sure and go to Poilane and Eric Kayser if you find yourself in Paris. Yummy!
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Have a great time!
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That’s it! I’m gonna play “Hooky” and go fishing too! Wait for me! (grabs fishing pole, sandwich and root beer).
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Enjoy French cuisine, “”Cordon Bleu”” in movie “Julie &Julie”, Dr. Ravitch.
Have the best rest and time in French. At the age of 70+, every trip on vacation is the BONUS in life. May
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Enjoy French cuisine, “”Cordon Bleu”” in movie “Julie &Julie”, Dr. Ravitch.
Have the best rest and time in France. At the age of 70+, every trip on vacation is the BONUS in life. May
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enjoy France; my family helped defend France twice in the 20th century. My uncle fought in Normandy and the Bulge. My grandfather arrived in January 1915 and saw more than his share of combat. He left behind his Company Commander, his Sergeant Major, his brother, his brother-in-law, ten first cousins and scores of comrades and close friends. His Regiment alone suffered 25,000 casualties and 7,131 killed. The Argylls (no defunct except as a ceremonial company for the tourists) We have ancient ties to France (both France and Gaul) and actually there is a Monroe family in France descended from Ullysses Munro, a Jacobite Recusant. Many Munros were dual French nationals (legal until 1905). Until modern times French was as common a lanuage as English as a second language among educated people. Mary Queen of Scots, for example, was a native French speaker and was more at home in French or Latin than English (which she could read.). She knew some Scots and some Gaelic (her grandfather was a native-speaker but was killed at Flodden). At Quebec in 1759 (see Parkman)French-speaking Scottish soldiers penetrated the French lines and helped Wolfe achieve victory. The story is the French officer let them pass saying “no Englishman could speak French so well or know the French Regiments so well.” He was right but forgot about Scottish veterans of French Regiments. Great people. Great culture. Great food. Great climate this time of year. One of my favorite countries in the world. It goes without saying most priests in my grandfathers time spoke Italian, Spanish and French and were competent in Latin. My uncle began to study Spanish with a graduate of the Scots College of Valladolid in Glasgow. My father majored in French and English at Brooklyn College and briefly taught in tne NYC public schools. (He was openly criticized for speaking English with an accent- they couldn’t get away with that today). I assure you that was NYC’s loss. But then I am also NYC’s loss as I am unlkely ever to return or live in that city but for which i still feel some sentimental attachment. One cannot wipe out 21 years so easily.
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We are creating the revolution now….Have a great time and return safely…You are desperately needed to continue being the voice for the millions of children who are destined for a life of darkness unless we can make miracles happen all over this great country….I have a Pulitzer Prize book in the final stages of research….You must author it…..You are the native of Houston/Texas….The well known birthplace of the both the Texas and Houston Miracles….If you get a chance visit Normandy…….Much Love and Admiration….Billy
Billy R. Reagan
(713) 795-9696
(832) 215-8877 cell
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