"Although we're strong when we stand together
as union members, we're exponentially stronger
when we connect with the community."
--AFT President Randi Weingarten.
On the first day of school we are reminded of the need for unity within the school community. For surely, in unity there is strength. Today, more than ever, we see the need to enlist the support of parents as we work together to secure the best education and best educational environment possible for our students. We need the support of all stakeholders as we challenge legislators to make young people a top priority on legislative agendas.
Surely with a renewed pledge of solidarity, we will see a reinvestment of economic capital in public education. We will see a revitalization of structured environments in school communities. We will see new programs which provide the skills and develop the competencies needed so that our students will become productive members of society.
An investment of economic capital would assure the development of new schools, state of the art libraries, supervised playgrounds and after school programs. These arenas are the safe havens for our youth. An increase in school funding would provide the enrichment afforded by the Arts. The Arts have proven time and time again to have a positive impact on education. New capital investments would seed programs of prevention and intervention for out at - risk students and increase guidance and counseling services to end a child's cycle of failure and frustration. Failure and frustration unabated, far too often, translate into assaults, disruptions in classrooms and heightening violent incident statistics.
This call for unity between parent and teacher is expressed in a poem:
Unity
I dreamed I stood in a studio
And watched two sculptors there,
The clay they used was a young child's mind,
And they fashioned it with care.
One was a teacher; the tools he used
Were books and music and art;
One a parent with a guiding hand,
And a gentle, loving heart.
Day after day the teacher toiled,
With touch that was deft and sure,
While the parent labored by his side
And polished and smoother it o'er.
And when at last their task was done,
They were proud of what they had wrought,
For the things they had molded into the child
Could neither be sold nor bought.
And each agreed he would have failed
If he had worked alone,
For behind the parent stood the school,
And behind the teacher, the home.
(Poet unknown)
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