DUKES FANS:
“Up in the morning and off to school...”
Chuck Berry
This week saw the return of folks to school-public, private, charter and more. For the past two weeks I have seen and heard kids and parents flooding Staples stores trying to decide just what binders, folders, backpacks would work best. In department stores I have witnessed the inevitable battles over what is and/or is not appropriate to wear this year. I live three blocks from a wonderful public elementary school, and many of my neighbors stood outside the school yesterday morning cheering the kids and teachers as they arrived for Day 1. I took the train home from Center City around 3:15 yesterday, and there were kids from Masterman, Friends Select, and other Center City schools filling the seats and talking excitedly about the first day back. It is the start of the school year, and that is a special time.
I retired from teaching way back in 2015, but I still love witnessing all of these scenes. Beneath the craziness and politicalization of education in recent months, these regular rituals surrounding the return of the school year remind me that education should be about kids and teachers trying to learn to communicate with each other, trying to help each other be excited about learning and working together, trying to ignite imagination, and trying hard to build supportive and nurturing communities. So much of our culture these days seems to have forgotten that or is willingly ignoring that. As someone who had wonderful public school experiences and taught and loved teaching for some 40 years, that saddens me...
A reminder about Jamey’s House of Music:
Upstairs tenants at Jamey’s flooded the bathroom leading to a collapsed ceiling in the club itself. There is a Go Fund Me set up to help raise the estimated $16,000 needed to pay for repairs. Please give what you can; you know how valuable this place is with its incredible roster of blues jazz, and folk concerts, its Sunday jams, and its great food. Please help out:
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