Thoughts from Dr. Joe: Teachers’ struggle begs for a solution
Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” is considered one of the world’s most influential political manuscripts. When I was in college, it was required reading in Sister Audrey’s political philosophy class. It presented an analytical approach to class struggle. Due to competing socioeconomic interests, it explained the inevitable tension existing between people. Sister said, “The tenants of socioeconomics depict the struggle between the creators of wealth and the working class. Humanity has always stood in opposition to one another.”
Sister taught that the labor movement, or any movement, often becomes an emotional issue. However, critical analysis is essential since it views the problem in the context of a greater paradigm.
What’s going on in between the La Cañada Teachers Assn. and the La Cañada Unified School District?
I transcribed selected quotes from Sister’s class into my journals. One was from Plutarch, “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.”
The labor movement and its creation of unions was the principal force that transformed the working class by raising the living standards of millions. This, in turn, created a powerful middle class. CNN reported the middle class in America had increased by four percent in the last 20 years whereas China’s middle class increased by 70%.
Maybe it’s not about the district and the union, but the system.
I’ve been a member of four unions, from the Longshoremen’s Assn. to the American Federation of Teachers. Based on what I have experienced, I trust unions as far as I can throw them. However, we’ve all read Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.” So, as Sister Audrey liked to say, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
Sister was a romantic with a sprinkle of utilitarianism. She’d have nothing to do with unions, but saw the struggles from a human perspective. She believed it was the abolitionists, the suffragists and people involved with Shay’s Rebellion that solidified democracy. They fought for individual rights for the common good. That required compromising. Is any compromise happening in La Cañada?
Sister Audrey’s favorite singer-songwriter was Woody Guthrie. He sang of his experiences during the Dust Bowl era. Guthrie traveled with displaced farmers from Oklahoma to California, earning the nickname the Dust Bowl Troubadour. As we piled into her philosophy class, she’d play Guthrie’s classic, “This Land is your Land.” At the time, I didn’t understand the correlation between its verses and philosophy. But Sister had a genius of imprinting understanding where one day her students would comprehend the bigger picture. She kept the past alive so we would understand the present.
She saw the change makers, not in a collective light such as unions, but from the perspective of an individual’s contribution. In my journal, I copied one of her of her moral analogies: “People are like a box of crayons, and each person has their unique color that we scribble into a book of life.” I see the moment in color when she stared at the class and said, “Yours is not the color ‘clear.”’
My comments are apropos to the current plight of the labor negations in the district. Teachers paint color in our lives. Recently, the sightings of teachers lining the byways of La Cañada wearing matching blue shirts has brought attention to their quest for comparable wages. It doesn’t sit well with me seeing our teachers canvassing the community. Why then hasn’t the district stepped up and done something to prevent this?
My heart is with the teachers, not only because I was one, but also because they shape our children’s lives. But whose idea is it to bring the students into the battle between the teachers and district? And what’s the district doing to resolve the situation?
Hey! We put a man on the moon! Why can’t the teachers and the district solve this problem?
I’ve run out of time and words. Revisit me next week. I have a few more thoughts.
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JOE PUGLIA is a practicing counselor, a retired professor of education and a former officer in the Marines. Reach him at doctorjoe@ymail.com. Visit his website at doctorjoe.us.
