How Can We Sleep?

I made an allusion this past school year to being trapped in a burning building. Ironically, or maybe not, I was in the car the other day when I heard one of my favorite songs from the 80s by Midnight Oil--"Beds Are Burning." I turned it up, because for me, the louder the better. As I listened to the lyrics, I thought about our situation, and the words resonated on so many levels. I became angrier an angrier as I listened, and so many questions crossed my mind: How can they sleep at night knowing what they've done? How are we supposed to move on as if nothing has happened? Why are they discarding or displacing us rather than begging us to stay? Why are they pigeonholing the students and teachers rather than empowering them? 

I could almost see it in my mind--teachers and students taking over the central office and shouting one verse, and the powers that be coming to their senses and begging forgiveness in another verse.

The Teachers, The Students:

How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning

The Powers That Be:

The time has come
To say fair's fair
To pay the rent, now
To pay our share
The time has come
A fact's a fact
It belongs to them
We're gonna give it back

I met a young woman just a few days ago who has been laid off three times in her five years of teaching. When she is rehired, she's at a new school teaching a different grade level. That doesn't scare her. What does scare her is being #414 on the list to get rehired at her district. Meanwhile, the students she was supposed to teach get a long-term sub rather than her, #414. It's outrageous, yet her situation, my situation are acceptable in this country.

Pubic education in the United States has lost all morality. It's in a burning bed, and the government wants to impose laws that dictate how to put out the fire; the public wants to pinpoint blame on who set the fire; districts lay off half the teachers and hand the remaining ones a garden hose to fight the fire; and meanwhile, the media asks, "Why aren't the students leaning?"

It's time to wake up, America, and demand better for your children, the next generation of leaders. Unless you do, the powers that be will never chant that verse and the children's future will be consumed.