Quite a Week for This K-12 Revolutionary

Tuesday, 18 April, was one remarkable day, inasmuch I roared on to Minneapolis for diverse efforts pertinent to the K-12 revolution after returning from Dallas, Texas, and Easter spent with my 95 year-old mom, the most amazing Betty Davison.   

The ensuing days were just as remarkable.

 

My beloved (St. Olaf College Professor) Barbara Reed and I arrived back home almost on the dot at 2:00 PM on that remarkable day of Tuesday, 18 April.

 

I made the changeover from travel items to academic materials for the evening in North Minneapolis, then by 3:45 PM I was setting up for New Salem Tuesday Tutoring.  I went over to find the Davis Center (central offices of the Minneapolis Public Schools, 1250 West Broadway) all abuzz with students and staff from several sites protesting budget cuts.  There were so many people as to constitute a fire hazard, but the crowd forced its way in and Jason the top security guy decided it was the better part of wisdom not to challenge the exertions of the people assembled.

 

This group proved to be a receptive audience for the three-minute version of my spoken word piece, "The Entreaty of Melissa McCoy" (that version and the full update appropriate for this early juncture of Ed Graff's tenure as superintendent both posted recently as you scroll on down this blog), which I delivered from my typical first-up position during the Public Comments segment at the beginning of this meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education.  I delivered those comments pungently and emotionally, especially when I turned toward the audience to deliver the lines,


You gonna give me my education,
so that I can tell my
great-great-great-great-great granny
what you would never tell her: 
I am sorry. 
I am so, so sorry.

 

I then went back over to New Salem to run the Tuesday Tutoring Program, thereby administering to the children that the district of the Minneapolis Public Schools academically abuses during the daytime.

 

Upon multiple rewarding interactions and the conclusion of tutoring, I went back over the school board meeting to observe the members of that less than august body wrangle over whether to establish a public engagement committee.  I also found out that the protesters were substantially successful in inducing the board to recommend reinstatement of teacher and teacher aide staff cut at numerous sites, with the motive for doing so having been the $28 million deficit currently vexing MPS decision-makers.  

 

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I took Wednesday in my office for writing and research, posting three blog articles and also generating some information on contemporary wedding practices in Taiwan, done in the context of discussions that I have had with my friends and fellow participants in the Festival of Nations exhibit. 

 

Thursday was another day of multiple student interactions:  preparing Grade 3 Anita for her math MCA;  continuing to lead Grade 7 Naomi in our examination of the Vietnam War;  teaching the three Ramirez sisters (Grades 8 Miranda, Grade 12 Belinda, and first-year university student Felicia) mostly matters relevant to federal budgeting from the Economics chapter of my nearly complete book (Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education) but also some poetic descriptions of photographs with which middle sister Belinda needed help;  and then having absolutely sensational interaction with Joshua Houston (he whom I have dubbed the nicest young man this side of my son, Ryan Davison-Reed) on the Freudian psychoanalysis segment of my Psychology chapter from Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.

 

Today I was back home writing, posting two new articles on the blog;  keeping processes moving forward toward completion of Understanding the Minneapolis Public Schools:  Current Condition, Future Prospect;  and carrying out multiple communications with my Taiwanese friends, with whom I am meeting tomorrow in the midst of a full day of academic sessions.

 

Whew!!!!!  Nah---  Is this really only my third full day back since Barbara and I returned to Minnesota?

 

Such is the busy, blessed life of the K-12 revolutionary.