I’ll wager that most people are sick of reading about the
English department at Gilroy High, so I will make this response
brief.
In his letter of Tuesday, Ron Kinoshita writes;
”
What has The Dispatch editorial done? It has undermined years of
work by the Academic Alliance.
I’ll wager that most people are sick of reading about the English department at Gilroy High, so I will make this response brief.
In his letter of Tuesday, Ron Kinoshita writes; “What has The Dispatch editorial done? It has undermined years of work by the Academic Alliance. Even though it is totally wrong, you have placed “a guilt by association” in the minds of the teachers at Gilroy High School. Your editorial is written in such a style that makes it difficult not to place some blame on the Academic Alliance. That’s unfortunate.”
What is tragic is that Ron is probably correct in his assertion. There are likely a number of teachers at the high school who assign “guilt by association.”
There are undoubtedly some teachers who still don’t get it. For the umpteenth time, the Academic Alliance has nothing to do with the editorial board of the Gilroy Dispatch. The Academic Alliance is not “out to get” anyone at Gilroy High School. The Alliance is very single-minded in it’s pursuit of an academically challenging curriculum for all students. Personally, I don’t feel undermined yet. I can’t and won’t speak for any of the other hundreds of Alliance supporters.
I am feeling a little battered though. Not because of any one person in particular, but as a parent I feel weary. In many ways, I feel like an “army of one.”
I have learned my lessons well in our district. School staffs love you when you are volunteering to be the executive in charge of fundraising, or the parent who attends every class trip, or just the only one to bring snacks. Soon enough you get recruited into being president of the Parent Club, or on the school site council. You’re feeling the love when you donate money or books, write grants for music and art, and help in the classroom.
But the loving feeling quickly dissipates when you start asking questions that no one wants to answer. This is what can happen when you first notice. for example, that your school’s budget is skewed to disproportionately serve the needs of some students at the expense of others.
I pondered this today as watched the Brownell wrestling match; if I could wave my magic wand and change just one thing in Gilroy schools, what would I change? It wouldn’t be ELL or GATE or the reading list. I would want to change the hearts of district employees. I would like to give them the opportunity to see our school district through my eyes. They might come to realize that some of their fellow employees too frequently speak out of turn.
I have heard so many disparaging comments from district employees about parents. Some of these are directed at parents who have given everything but a kidney for their school.
While Gilroy is still a pretty small community, our collective “army” of parents is fairly sophisticated. To put it bluntly, we know what you think we don’t know. We parents know the good, the bad and the ugly things that get said behind closed doors.
I have many more years to go in this school district, it is my great hope that the discord will be non-existent by the time my youngest graduates from Gilroy High. Either way, this “army of one” is not going away.
A final thought on literature. In the midst of the great debate over English curriculum and literature lists, our district celebrated Love of Literacy two weeks ago. Before the schools could get started, I attended a wonderful get together with a dozen women at a literature luncheon. Each of us brought a favorite book which we shared with the group.
Three hours is not enough time to discuss a dozen books. At the end of the afternoon, we each had to select just one book to bring home. I had only previously read three of the books that were shared that afternoon. I now want to read each one of the books we discussed.
I am just getting enmeshed in my pick, “Atonement” by Ian McEwen. The phrase “so many books, so little time” keeps reverberating through my mind. My New Year’s resolution will be to read all the books we shared over the course of the next year.
