Mueller, the vice president of MEA, our union, spoke at our Kramer Brown spring banquet last night.
Besides getting to speak about our teacher of the year and retirees and having my beautiful wife accompany me to the banquet, this little story Mueller shared with us during his keynote presentation was my highlight of the evening.
Mueller was visiting an elementary school in Minneapolis whose population were poor minority children. The day he attended happened to feature their science fair.
He stopped by one project that focused on music and sound waves. Mueller began visiting with the little girl. As a former high school teacher, he said that he is always amazed by the wonder elementary school children exhibit.
"So," he asked the little girl who designed the exhibit, "do you like science?"
Her eyes got big and her face lit up and a smile spread across her face, "Oh boy. I loove science."
He noticed that part of the project featured music playing, so he asked, "So, do you like music?"
Her eyes got a little bit bigger and her face lit up a bit more and a larger smile spread across her face, "Oh boy. I loooooove music, especially band."
So he thought he'd press further, "So, do you like to sing?"
Here her eyes got biggest of all as did the smile on her face, which really began to light up the whole room, "Of course! I just came from choir. It's my favorite class of all. It's the reason I love school."
Mueller ended his questions there. He just didn't have the heart to ask her how much she was looking forward to the MCA testing next week.
Worst of all, though, was that Mueller saw on the front page of the St. Paul paper that this very same school will be cutting its music programs - to save a million dollars.
So much for that enthusiasm and passion of that little girl.
Those damn tests. As far as I'm concerned you can take your tests and data and shove it.
2 comments:
We need to get a group of kids, like that little girl, and have them in front of the people who cut Arts programs. See how confident they are about destroying kids' dreams then!
Cuts to all programs, not just schools, are in the offing. There is no alternative. The sources of money are running out; the time is come for paying for our spree. The taxpayers are fewer and the payback obligations are mounting.
Greece here we come.
That is not to say I don't sympathize - I do, with schools, with senior citizens, with so many worthy programs. But ya can't have ice cream when the cow is dry. (Farm talk)
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