Celebrating Retired Teachers Week

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This week, educators all around the state of California are celebrating Retired Teachers Week. The celebration will span the week of November 1-7. This year is the 22nd year that the celebration is being observed.

After years, and sometimes decades, of giving selflessly to their students, their schools, and their communities, California’s retired teaches continue to give back through their wallets and their passion for volunteer work. Though some people would say that retired teachers and their pensions are a drain on the economy, facts and figures show that the opposite is true. Retired teachers pay $1.5 billion in federal, state, and local taxes each year. In addition, they donate nearly 2 million hours in volunteer work which has been valued at nearly $61 million. Furthermore, members of the California Retired Teachers Association (CalRTA) have donated more than $600,000 in grants, scholarships, and donations to schools and current and future teachers last year.

CalRTA has had a long history of working on behalf of the state’s retired educators. The organization was founded in 1929, while the Great Depression was in full swing, when a small group of teachers organized to fight for retirement security for the state’s retired educators. “Our early leaders showed us what dedication, compassion, and determination can accomplish,” observed Dr. James Mahoney, CalRTA State President. “Today we’re trying to live up to their example as we continue our fight for retirement security while also giving back to our local communities and protecting public education.”

To learn more about the California Retired Teachers Association, follow this link to their website calrta.org.

Celebrating the Dia de los Muertos…

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Today, all throughout the American Southwest and elsewhere, our Mexican American students are celebrating the Dia de los Muertos, also known as the Day of the Dead. The annual observance is a special day set aside to remember and honor the memory of beloved relatives who have passed away.

Here is a wonderful article that explains in detail the origins and practices of the Dia de Los Muertos. To see more photos, visit the School Arts Room, an art education blog for K-12 art teachers. Enjoy!

Photo credit: School Arts Room.

Kamehameha schools preserve Native Hawaiian culture

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Kamehameha Schools, Maui campus located in Pukalani, Maui. (Photo credit: Kamehameha Schools)

While conducting research for my book Chalkboard Champions, I learned a great deal about numerous types of schools that I had never heard about in my thirty-odd years as an educator. Industrial schools, emancipation schools, farm schools, normal schools, specialist schools. Where were all these terms when I went through student teaching? One type of school I learned about that I found particularly intriguing is the Kamehameha School located in the beautiful state of Hawaii.
Kamehameha Schools were first established in 1887 at the bequest of Bernice Bishop, also known as Princess Pauahi, a member of the Hawaiian royal family when the state was still a territory. Princess Pauahi and her beloved husband, an American named Charles Reed Bishop, had no children of their own, and so when she passed away in 1882 at the age of 52, she directed that her vast estate should be used to benefit and educate underprivileged Native Hawaiian children. Two schools were built: one for boys and one for girls. Eventually the two schools were merged to form a co-ed school, now located on a six-hundred-acre campus on the main island of Oahu overlooking Honolulu Harbor. Other branches of the school have been built on neighboring Hawaiian islands.
Kamehameha Schools serve the important function of preserving Native Hawaiian culture, history, and language. One of the ways this is done is through the annual choral competition known as the Kamehameha Song Contest, where traditional Hawaiian songs and dances as well as new compositions in the genre are performed by the students. This is a wonderful tradition that goes back 45 years.
When I think of Chalkboard Champions, my first thought is of teachers, of course, but individuals such as Princess Pauahi who support schools financially and with their volunteer hours are also heroes to our students!

Read more about Kamehameha Schools in my book Chalkboard Champions, available on amazon.

US suffrage schools helped to win the vote for women

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Educator and suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt established suffrage schools that helped women in the United States earn the right to vote.

When I read about remarkable teachers, I often come across terms that describe varieties of schools I have never heard of before. One such example is the term “suffrage schools.” These schools were first developed in 1917 by suffragette Carrie Chapman Catt, a trained and experienced teacher. Her purpose in establishing theses schools was to train women volunteers to become politically effective in their efforts to win the vote for women.
For the suffrage schools, Carrie developed innovative courses that focused on theories of government, political institutions, and practical applications. She also encouraged women to study state laws, identifying those that were unfair to women, and working to change them. The curriculum also included such topics as public speaking, the organization of the US government, the history of the suffrage movement, how to develop a good relationship with the press, and how to use the press for influencing the electorate. Eventually the lessons taught in these schools paid off, for women won the right to vote with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919.
You can read more about Carrie Chapman Catt and her suffrage schools in my second book, Chalkboard Heroes, available on amazon.