It's shocking to me how many people were at the capital this past Thursday. It was my first time experiencing political lobbying and engaging on the ground with my state representatives. As the legislative session comes to a close it seems others had the same idea.
The Georgia Association of Educators, the GA equivalent of a union (since we are a right-to-work state and this is the best we can do), tries to promote public education in a climate which is not always receptive. Working in education in the South is interesting and challenging as our state lags behind all of the New England states where I grew up. I think my day-to-day experience working in the classroom is very different than the experience of the policy wonks and politicians who perhaps very rarely set foot in a classroom. This is a common critique of educational policy makers and has especially become more prominent with the appointment of our new secretary of education Betsy school vouchers Devos.
My experience at the capital with GAE was somehow was invigorating, frustrating, informative, and inefficient all at once. As I had never done something like this, it was a cool thing to do and perhaps, as a non-committed career teacher, a once-in-a-life-time opportunity. I came away from the day feeling like I probably did not accomplish much and I'm not sure I'll do it again. But that might just be the normal experience engaging in the democratic process as a minority citizen and the alternative of not doing anything and disengaging is a worse alternative. Most teachers are not part of the union, or I should association, in Georgia and my impression is most of them do not engage with the political side of things. It's not that we don't care, it's just that we are somewhat disconnected from the process and only when something truly big is happening do we care. The majority of us (especially non-activist types) are too busy to connect with the policy process on an ongoing basis even if it does effect our day-to-day classroom teaching experience. Mostly we just grumble and complain about the decline in education, lack of support and resources, and latest annoyance and frustration with our students. I would not call teaching a thankless task but we are part of a much larger system in which, to be a bit hackneyed, we are all just small cogs in the larger wheel. Back the capital last Thursday, I assumed incorrectly that most of the other people at the capital would be lobbyists. One thing that seemed to make the day so busy was the number of people, who, unlike me, actually got to come to the capital on a somewhat regular basis as part of their job. The number of causes and people from different places was really surprising. G.A.E. gave us a big list of the current legislation of educational bills they were watching that we might want to take positions on before marching into the capital. I also experienced a very rude encounter with a man who accused me of "cheating" because I had jumped the line to speak with my senator. This is referred to as "working the ropes." But as far as the "cheating" accusation, I had no idea what was going on in all of the chaos and confusion of trying to speak to my representative. It turned out that you had to wait in a very long line to give a small piece of paper with the name of the senator or representative that you wanted to see. Once they register who you want to see (a secretary of sorts), they give your slip to a young girl or boy page who gets the person you want to see from out of the assembly. It was fun getting to speak to my senator although ironically I actually already knew who she was and she's very progressive. I found out that later that day the bill I was concerned about and in opposition to- the new Opportunity School Districts bill called the Chief Turnaround Officer plan, advanced that afternoon much to my chagrin. Again, I'm not sure how much this work does but I was glad to see so many citizens getting in on the ground floor of our democracy. Even Trump can't stop that.
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| Posing on the steps inside the Capital |
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| Busy day at the capital |
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| Working the ropes |
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| Senator Nann Orroch and myself posing for a photo |
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| The Senate debate room |
