I wonder how better a teacher I am because of great colleagues who battle along side you in schools. A wide collection of colleagues, but there have been some great ones that just care about kids. I still remember Jeff Kohls saying after a kid left to go to another school, "If you call him, he will know that you care." We just lost a great one when Kevin Budd from Nerinx died. If my service is one tenth of his I will be happy. But this is about my colleague at North Tech, a man who believes in students and pushes them to be their best. Who I learned today had to push himself to do his best from the streets of East St. Louis to the teacher he is today. Surprise, Surprise he had a great mother who showed him the way, did not let him be less than his best and showed him through her example of hard work that he too could find his path.
Victor and his wife and several of my other colleagues are working to make North Tech better and also working to make families feel welcome. During our training we have had several frank conversations about race. I let him know that I feel I still had a way to go and was striving to be better. Much in the way that Pope Francis says he is a sinner, I think we all need to work harder at seeing the realities of life for those that our history has marginalized. I think maybe Victor knows how much I value him as an educator and whose voice I listen to, because he has real things to say. Breakfast 1 was with Ed and Steve who I have known forever. But today's breakfast with Victor was much different as we are still learning about each other as people. Where the shorthand used by long term friends is great, it is the new friend or the stranger that we should be really pursuing as they have so much to teach us.
I am the old, crabby white guy who says, "Turn off that music, it's math class." Whereas Victor with a degree in Music and training in Music and a love of music has researched what type of music and what type of beats actually help students. And uses music in his classroom to allow his students to open their mind and their energy to learn more. Victor and I had breakfast today at a Cracker Barrel on New Halls Ferry as I waited for the store to open, I sat on a rocker next to a giant checkerboard outside. Victor's "posed picture" is in that rocker. As I sat there trying to figure out what I am trying to do and learn from these 50 breakfasts, I thought about the 2 of us maybe in a different time playing checkers in front of a country store and telling stories. Maybe about the mothers that loved us and raised us. I was about to tell him the story about how my mom cut a reading cartoon out of the Globe-Democrat to teach us to read. She cut them out for my older sister Mary, but she pulled the stack out of the drawer to teach me how to read. I wonder how worn those old newspaper comics were by the time Katie was taught. So I am sharing my words with my guests and now Victor will now this story, but I have many more stories for him, and I hope to more important listen to the stories he has to tell.
So far 2 breakfasts in... I am learning so much. I want to take you to breakfast, believe me you are on my list. Call me up and let's set up a time.
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