The Kids' Table

The holidays are here and so are all the memories, treasured and traumatic, that come along with them. One of those that seemed traumatic at the time was being relegated to the Kids’ Table at the big holiday meals. I don’t know what secrets and hidden delights we thought we were missing out on but reaching the adult table was one of those elusive goals of the future like getting your drivers’ license and going to college. My son, who was the youngest grandchild for twelve long years, felt especially ostracized from the Grown-Up Table. All this talk of generations and bridging the gulf between tables gave me an “aha” moment when attending the NCUEA Fall Conference in Austin last week. (The National Council of Urban Education Associations is a group of large local affiliates of the National Education Association.) For those of us in association leadership, membership numbers are always floating around in our heads and we are always looking for ways to increase those numbers because hey, it’s a union, and our strength is our numbers. Just like with any organization, we run the risk of “aging out” and leaving no one behind to pick up the torch. We see this in the teaching profession, as a whole, and in association membership and activism, in particular. We spend whole workshops learning about the characteristics of The Millennials - those tech-savvy, tea cup children born since Ronald Reagan entered the White House. I happened to have raised two Millennials and to have taught thousands (literally) of them while they enjoyed their halcyon high school days. When you talk to individual Millennials, however, you find that they really don’t all fit the definition their generation is given any more than do the Baby Boomers or Generation X. When you talk to the ones who have chosen the teaching profession, you hear them saying the same things we said so many years ago, “I love my students and I want nothing more than to teach them with the resources and support we need and without all kinds of interference.” Maybe instead of looking for the magic bullet to “reaching the Millennials and getting them involved,” we should just invite them to the Grown-Up Table where they can be part of the conversation, learn from the wisdom of the elders, and even introduce their own new dish for the dinner. We can’t afford to focus on our differences but should instead focus on the fact that we’re all one big public education family who should all be dining at the same table. And that’s what I really think.

Stranger on a Plane

Today I flew back from a conference in Austin and I sat next to the nicest lady on the leg from Houston to Tulsa. She was eighty years old and still very pretty. She had lively blue eyes and her nails had been done professionally. I found out she has seven grandchildren and thirteen great grandchildren and “every one of them is spoiled by their MeMaw.” I shared with her that I’m not a grandma yet but I definitely plan on spoiling any future grandchildren because “that’s the only way we know how to do it in our family.” This sweet lady, whose name I never learned, lives in Pittsburg, Kansas with her husband and most of her extended family. Her husband was driving from Pittsburg to Tulsa to pick her up at the airport and she had joked to him that maybe he should bring a dogsled because of the snow in Tulsa. In the best of road conditions, Pittsburg is a two-hour drive from Tulsa. When I asked her what brought her to Houston, she told me that she flies down several times a year for a few days to take care of Mary, her fifty-seven year old daughter-in-law who has MS. Mary’s own mother usually does the bulk of the care-giving but my traveling companion goes to give her a break. I shared that my husband has MS but his is the kind that is Relapsing-Remitting and he gets around quite well with a cane. Mary, however, has the severe Progressive kind that has relegated her to living in a wheelchair and not being able to speak or care for herself. My heart goes out to Mary but I have a special appreciation for her mother and her mother-in-law, both elderly ladies, who should be sitting back having their grandchildren wait on them hand and foot but instead they’re still caregivers and they take it in stride because “that’s what you do until you’re not able to do it anymore.” Meanwhile, back home in Oklahoma, people were saying hurtful things to one another over a football game. Perspective can be a gift from a stranger on a plane. And that’s what I really think.