PRENOTE:  Some comments have been added at the very end of the Oct 8 post about Gaza.  Here.  I expect to do a followup post on this topic on Nov.. 4.  Your contribution is solicited.

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In a couple of months I’ll mark 24 years retired after a 36 year career in public education.  Nonetheless, yesterday, as has been fairly common for me in my retired years, I went to the morning sessions of the “2023 MEA conference”  (at River Centre in St. Paul).  (Here’s the Minneapolis Star tribune article: MEA Conf Star Trib Oct 20 2023).

“MEA”  is such a tradition in Minnesota that the third Thursday in October is always the start of “MEA weekend”, a no-school event for kids, as hard to dislodge as Thanksgiving and other similar holidays.

“MEA” for the past 25 years has been a program of Education Minnesota, the merged organization (1998) which previously had been two competing teacher unions, MEA and MFT.  The name “MEA weekend” survived – more so public tradition than anything else.  I noticed that officially, in the program, that”MEA” means  “Minnesota Educator Academy”  – (called “MEA Conference”. on the cover of the union’s Minnesota Educator Oct – Nov issue).  Words…Acronyms….

For much of my career and 100 years before the annual gathering was called the “teachers convention”.   In more recent years, including in my career, it has become recognized there are many teachers in schools, which include folks like cooks, custodians, secretaries etc.  “School” is all of the children and adults assembled – a place for kids to become adults, with abundant adult role models.

There was a large menu of choices yesterday.

I can only speak about the five persons I heard.  There were many choices.  It was an excellent day.  Click on the names for more about each of those I heard.

Monica Byron, vice-president of Ed MN welcomed us.   She acknowledged this was the first such speech she’d given to such a group.   Personally I thought this comment added a great deal to otherwise very well prepared remarks.  I would bet all of us in the hall could remember our own first, among many firsts in our own lives!

Monica introduced Michael Houston, MEA’s 59th Teacher of the Year, who gave an inspiring talk.

Keynoter was Brittany Wagner, one of the main stars of the Netflix series “Last Chance U”.  She was an outstanding  motivational speaker.

After her speech I caught Brittany and Michael (both at right).  Both spring from very ordinary roots, like we do:

Brittany Wagner and Michael Houston. St. Paul Oct 20, 2023

I had two other learning experiences Thursday.

I sat in on the session led by Evan Rosenthal: “Exploring Gender: Helping Cisgender Teachers Support Transgender Students and Staff.”  The link below Evan’s name is a YouTube video he presented to a group of Dentists.  It is definitely the same Evan I saw on Thursday, and the content is similar.  I specifically chose this particular workshop, and the interactions with the group in the audience were very meaningful.

Finally, As I entered the exhibit area Thursday morning, a table attracted my interest.  A teacher, Blair Clinton was selling his book “Memoirs of a Mediocre Teacher“.  I bought the book, and I think I’m going to find it worthwhile.  Blair has been teaching for over 20 years, and he’s a reading interventionist in a twin cities metropolitan school district.  Like very teacher, he has his own personal story, and my guess is that most of us who have ever taught have had lots of experience of feeling mediocre!  Things in school don’t always go perfectly!

A final thought: Most of the presenters yesterday noted the influence of at least one teacher in their career trajectory. It occurred to me yesterday, and has occurred to me often over the years, that every teacher (regardless of title: parent, co-workers, etc.) inevitably and often without knowing it has a particularly memorable impact on someone in his or her orbit.  I’ve thought often of these teachers in my own life.  Even a negative experience with a teacher can ultimately have a positive outcome in the long run.

Give it some thought.

Thanks, Education Minnesota.

POSTNOTE Oct 22:  I noted with interest a column by retired Community College history teacher Chuck Chalberg in today’s Minneapolis StarTribune opinion section.  Chalberg apparently retired about 2010, and is about my age, and has written frequently from his point of view.  He would have been a long-time member of MEA/Education Minnesota, but he is apparently no fan of public education and teachers unions.  I found a most interesting commentary about him on-line, which includes within a link to a talk he gave in South Dakota some years ago.  You can read it here.

I have a very different point of view: public school reflects all the imperfections of society in general, and is therefore a crucial platform for young people of all abilities and disabilities to prepare for adulthood.

My parents were career public school teachers, both beginning with country schools about 1929.  Several aunts and uncles were career teachers.  My parents entire career was in a state where teachers had no rights, and their salaries and working conditions reflected that, and my siblings and I saw the downside of that arrangement.  My parents certainly had contracts, a key provision that their contracts were annual, renewed at the discretion of the local school board.

Personally, six of my school years were in Catholic elementary school; I taught junior high school for 9 years, 8 in Minnesota, then represented public school teachers for 27 years, all in Minnesota.  Nine grandkids have spent all or much of their school years in public schools.  One daughter is a middle school principal in a large suburban middle school; another is full-time long term substitute in another middle school.

Is public education perfect?  Absolutely not.  Is there a better alternative?  I think not.  In the end, all of us citizens are in the same kettle.  Perhaps you can delay your childs exposure to the real world, but that is always temporary.  We swim or sink together.

As to politics, the teachers union is not in thrall to any political party; its interest, however, is in good public policy for public education, generally.

Chalberg’s commentary can be read here: Chalberg Star Trib Oct 22 23.  Here’s something he wrote in 2010, at about the end of his career as a teacher.  Here are some comments shared between friends James Klein and Dick Bernard on the topic of public education and unions:Jim Klein on public education and unions October 24, 2023   (The beginning of this link is Jim’s comment in the on-line comments section below.  The link includes more comments from Jim and myself.)

ADDENDA: Brief Essay on School and Community, by Dick Bernard, 2006: Community by Dick Bernard 2006.  Positive qualities of educators identified by teachers at a workshop in the late 1990s: Qualities of Educators.

COMMENTS (more at end of post): 

from Fred: Sounds as if you had a fine time at MEA. The Diary of a Mediocre Teacher sounds interesting.

from Norm:  Thanks for your analysis of what school is actually like.  That is, not every student is well behaved and follows the rules.  Not every student is there to learn although many are.  Not every parent is supportive of what the school is doing with their child, nor does every parent even care what is happening with their child when he/she is in school. or (fill-in-the-blanks).