I need to apologize to the Alliance for Academic Excellence.
Not, I hope, for anything I have said or done, but for what I have
thought in my heart of hearts.
I need to apologize to the Alliance for Academic Excellence. Not, I hope, for anything I have said or done, but for what I have thought in my heart of hearts.
I have been thinking they were a bunch of wimps.
Mandatory disclaimer: I am not, and never have been a member of the AAE. I do not speak for the AAE. No AAE members were consulted in the writing of this column.
However, often when I have spoken to members of the AAE, I have heard stories about the education (or, more often, the lack thereof) their children receive at GHS. I have heard their frustration, their sense that that they are battering at stone walls, their exhaustion as they contemplate how many years it might take before they see any further improvements.
And I ask, “Why don’t you write a letter to the editor?”
They wilt. And they say, “We don’t want them to be mad at us.”
I thought this was ridiculous. They are taxpayers, paying the bills. They are parents, providing the students. Naturally, they have a right to specify what will be taught and how.
“What are they going to do if you write a letter to the editor?” I would ask rhetorically.
I found their answers unconvincing. My son is going to need letters of recommendation; they might refuse to write one, or worse, write a bad one. They might pick on my child. Most absurd of all, they might refuse to cooperate with us to get better curriculum for the school.
I thought all these qualms silly as well as cowardly, until I read retired teacher Mr. Ron Kinoshita’s letter to the editor published Dec. 2. Mr. Kinoshita writes that a Dispatch editorial has “placed a guilt by association in the minds of the teachers at Gilroy High School,” and that it is “difficult not to place some blame” on the AAE. He goes on, ominously, “Your editorial … divides people and makes change difficult.”
Mr. Kinoshita, are you serious? Teachers are blaming the AAE for the editorials in The Dispatch? They might as well blame the AAE for the color of the sky. The changes the AAE wants will be more difficult to attain if critical editorials are published? Maybe the AAE members aren’t wimps after all. Maybe they are just smart.
The worst aspect of the letter is the character of the author. Mr. Kinoshita is known to me through mutual friends; I also had the honor of observing his classroom for an hour a few years ago. He struck me then as a decent, caring, compassionate teacher, and our mutual friends confirm this impression.
If Mr. Kinoshita, of all people, can blame innocent bystanders for a Dispatch editorial, if he can complacently hint that improvements might be stonewalled because of discontent in the faculty lounge, what hope is there for excellence at GHS? It will take a miracle … but I believe in miracles.
In hope then, I address a few of Mr. Kinoshita’s other points. He complains that teachers have too much on their plates. Mr. Kinoshita, Mr. Diaz, Mr. Bravo, Mr. Gray: the purpose of a school is to educate. Excellence in education has to be the number one priority of GUSD. If anything else competes for your attention, be it soda machines, developing independent thinkers, or celebrating diversity, sideline it.
Secondly, Mr. Kinoshita, your statement that parents can easily supplement their children’s literature with Great Books is absurd. My 13-year-old just finished reading Shakespeare’s Henry V; her older brother read Othello. Both my kids are smart; neither would have managed without an enthusiastic, knowledgeable teacher (no, not me!) and the commiseration of their peers.
Thirdly, Mr. Kinoshita, a strong-willed, passionate educator can effect changes in a very short time. Jaime Escalante had barrio kids passing the calculus AP within three years. Marva Collins worked similar miracles with her inner-city black students. Even here in Gilroy, Wendy Gudalewicz installed Pathways, Duplexes, and Enid Lee in jig time. Change can be made, and swiftly. Gilroy Unified doesn’t have to settle for raising our API scores by the state mandated minimum every year. We just have to decide that we want to improve.
