A note on graduation day

Today is the big day y’all. To quote the great urban philosopher Christopher Wallace, aka Notorious BIG, “we did it Brooklyn: we did it!” We’re to the finish line. I am proud of you, and even if you weren’t in my government class, you are an Abe; you are family.

Before tonight’s ceremony, I want to reiterate the point that Mr. Erwin made this morning. In life there are celebrations (which are for you) and there are ceremonies (which are for the people who love you); this is the latter. Graduation is a ceremony in which we honor all the graduates. The needs of the ceremony are more important than the needs of the individuals in it. I know that sounds harsh—like I am raining on your big day—but it is reality.

It’s about the class: that’s why you all wear the same black robes; that’s why you all wear mortar boards (that’s the name for the weird square hat, in case you didn’t know) with tassels on the same side; that’s why we walk in lines and sit and rise together. It’s a ceremony, like a wedding or meeting the President—no one acts a fool when it’s time to meet the POTUS (well, some people do, but the Secret Service bum rushes them and they go to jail for it).  

The ceremony tonight is going to be a blur. And when you’re my age (if our species survives the Trump Presidency) it will be both a blur and distant, but fond memory. I graduated in 1997, the year you were born. I can’t name the four people I walked with when I entered the Dome. I have no memory of who spoke or what they said. I know I walked, I know I wore a robe, I know my parents got some blurry pics of me. I remember thinking afterwards, that it was over in an instant.

What I remember is what came next—the celebration. I remember hugging family outside the Dome as you will today. I remember seeing my cousins from out of town, who I didn’t know were coming. I remember Deacon Morris from church giving me a card with a crisp $100 bill in it (that was like infinite $$$ back in the day). I remember having the greatest cookout in the history of all of the Hilltop. There were four grills going and folks I hadn’t seen in ten years were rolling in to dap me up (and get a plate).

I am excited for you all tonight. This has been the best and toughest of my ten year career, but we did it together. We overcame obstacles, rejected excuses and tonight you will cross the stage. Remember what I said on Tuesday, graduation isn’t the end of anything—it’s the beginning of everything. You all are just beginning a lifelong journey. Every one of you is a better student than I was in high school (no really, it’s true). This isn’t a period in the sentence of your lives, it is a comma, with much more to be written.

I offer you my customary closing for the last time. “I love you all, some more than others. Chairs in and good day.”

Ali: Más Grande de Todos los Tiempos

Friday night I sat at the foot of my bed, cellphone in hand, staring at Twitter, crying like a child over the death of one of my heroes. My wife repeatedly checked in with me, but I couldn’t explain why I was so upset. I get it now: the death of Muhammad Ali represents the end of an era for much of black America.

To black men of certain age, the age of my father and my uncles, Ali was the pinnacle: he was elegant and eloquent; he floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee; he was unapologetically pro-black; he was the best in the ring (back when boxing mattered); he was unafraid to speak his mind to condescending, incredulous TV personalities and audiences; and he was willing to sacrifice personal fame and fortune for his anti-war and anti-racist principles.

I am not old enough to have watched Ali in his prime, but I was raised on his legend. My father, born in Laurel, Mississippi, in 1930 and my uncles born in the mid-30s in Arkansas, loved Ali, and they taught me to, as well. I, like many brothers of my vintage, was raised on a healthy diet of Ali, Jim Brown, Kareem and Maya Angelou. Sadly, only two of them remain with us. 2016 has been a hard year of deaths. It seems that everyone I knew when I was young is old. Everyone who was old, is now dead.

Ali’s death is especially poignant because we need truth-tellers right now. In the era of $100 million endorsement deals and social media consultants, athletes have become PR trained automatons. No athlete today would or could take the stands he did. If they dared, they’d be crucified by the alleged journalists, like the clowns on First Take. Watching YouTube interviews of Ali (as I have much of today) I am reminded of Orwell: “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” Muhammad Ali’s truths about the Vietnam War, about racial injustice in America, about the colonization of Africa, were revolutionary, for his time and for ours.

I believe if you have a platform, dammit use it. In this moment, when a nativist, dog-whistle blowing, reactionary right, is ascendant in American politics, we need Alis in sports and in the black community.

I think it’s why I love Michael Bennett from the Seahawks so much.

I think it’s why I have grown to love Bey; we need more “Formation.”

I know it’s why I love Kendrick, but can’t mess with Kanye. Kendrick Lamar uses his platform to talk about police brutality, critique consumerism and to discuss economic inequality. Kanye usually uses his platform to talk about Kanye.

It's why I have zero time for apolitical figures like MJ. Michael Jordan is a counter-revolutionary. I have never owned and will never buy a pair of Jordans. Kareem nailed it in 2015, in an interview with NPR: Jordan has consistently chosen “commerce over conscience” and refused speak out on matters of justice, racial or otherwise, because “Republicans buy sneakers too.”

Ali used his platform. Few ever spoke so much truth to so much entrenched power.

It kills me, my oldest students were born in 1997. They were born a year after Ali lit the Olympic Torch in the Atlanta Summer Games. By that time, Ali had battled Parkinson’s for twelve years. I may have missed Ali’s prime, but they have only seen him in a diminished state. I imagine it’d be like only knowing MJ as a sneaker-pimp or from the Crying Jordan memes, or only knowing Curtis Mayfield after the accident that paralyzed him. You know of, but you don't really know.

At some point God just stopped making men like Muhammad Ali. Today I mourn the Greatest, but I also mourn for anyone who has grown up only knowing him as a shell of his former self.

Bomaye Ali.

State Teacher of the Year Washington Week or the Life and Times of a Gov Nerd in “the other Washington.”

Last week I joined my fellow State Teachers of the Year in DC for Washington Week: we met the leader of the free world, 44th President of the United States, and pretty darn handsome man, Barack Obama. We also met six-term senator, one of my favorite living rhetoricians, Vice President of the United States, “Uncle” Joe Biden and his (possibly more impressive) wife Dr. Jill Biden. We also met the Human Reset Button, the walking embodiment of bureaucratic tone change, Secretary of Education, Dr. John King.

Secret Service check heading into the Biden Residence.

On side trips, my wife and I visited the Ford Theater, where the namesake of my school, Abraham Lincoln, was shot by treasonous Confederate (those terms are admittedly redundant), John Wilkes Booth and Arlington National Cemetery. And last week at the invitation of CCSSO, I gave a policy talk on recruiting and retaining effective teachers of color, to members of the Whitehouse Staff and employees from the Department of Education.

In short fam, we had a helluva week in DC.

Policy Briefing to Whitehouse staff and employees of the Department of Education.

A Bit of a Whirlwind: Each year the 56... 55 (North Dakota just had a baby) State and territorial (DOD, Guam, Marianas Islands, Virgin Islands American Samoa and DC) teachers of the year gather in DC for Washington Week. It is intended to be a celebration of the profession. But recently, it has morphed into something more. The event is turning into a forum, where policymakers and ed groups seek input from practitioners from around the nation (and its territories).

This year we were provided an opportunity to give (often very frank) feedback to several ed organizations (NWEA, Pearson, ETS, Microsoft Education) on their policy platforms and upcoming initiatives in sessions called “Educator Perspective Breakouts.” I often talk about the need to include effective teacher voice in education policy formulation, I applaud those orgs specifically for listening to our collective points-of-view around PD, evaluation and assessment and seeking to create an ongoing dialogue around their work and ours. I don’t think we shifted the trajectory of their already laid plans, but we were invited to a conversation (a start) and we will see where that leads in the longterm.

In the East Room with 2016 Alaska Teacher of the Year, Amy Jo Meiners.

While we were in DC some of the SToYs talked about how they’ve received pushback from colleagues when they’ve raised issues of teacher quality and effectiveness. But, I think Shawn Sheehan, fellow NToY Finalist, and candidate for Oklahoma State Senate, nailed it, and for the sake of my kids I unapologetically co-sign: “those who can’t, definitely shouldn’t teach.” It really is that simple. The work is too important to believe otherwise.

Back to Home and My Reality: Upon returning to the real Washington, I felt physically exhausted, but pedagogically inspired. Within 12 hours of landing, I was back at Lincoln leading our final AP Exam review session to a standing-room crowd of Abes, in preparation for today’s AP Government & Politics exam.

Somewhere over flyover country, masquerading as Jupiter.

Within 24 hour hours, Audrey, Massachusetts Teacher of the Year, was proposing a collaborative story telling project to the SToYs. In the same timeframe, Talya from Maine was writing about her experiences in DC. Within 36 hours, I had started house hunting on Redfin, looking to recruit frustrated SToYs from states where they don’t feel as supported to work, teach and live in Tacoma.

DC was surreal at times, but it reminded me of the immediacy of the work we do here at Lincoln and in the South Sound with Teachers United. This work matters: Teachers are loved. Teachers aren’t appreciated. This work is draining. This work is energizing. This work often seems impossible. This work is always essential.

These are the contradictions we live with.