Above, Rose Scalo and friends from her school in North Park support the effort to stop cuts to education. Her parents Sarah, Gino, and brother Angelo Scalo were there to lend support.
NO MORE CUTS

Aristotle said, “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

This morning I joined a group of students, parents, teachers, and other concerned citizens to send a message to California’s governor and legislators that the state’s education system has been weakened to an extent that the very future of the state and the nation is in jeopardy. Among the teachers and their supportive partners were Sarah and Gino Scalo and Dave and Clyde Yoshida. Gino is an English teacher and Clyde teaches math. They are two of the best teachers I have ever known. I feel confident that I am speaking truth when I say they contribute more to securing the future of our country than all the CEOs of Wall Street companies combined. The very people who insist that Wall Street and our country’s financial systems should remain basically unregulated are the same folks who insist on more regulations and less financial support for our schools.

O.K., O.K. I admit it. Mine is a predictable rant. Things aren’t the way the used to be... but since this is my journal, my blog, I’m going to say it anyway. My first year of teaching began in September of 1957 at Yuba City High School in Northern California. Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, was President of the United States. He would not meet the approval of today’s Republicans. At great cost to American taxpayers he strengthened and enlarged social programs, especially social security and education. He established a new cabinet post in government, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. He extended welfare benefits to ten million American workers. He helped remove Joseph McCarthy from power. He began an Interstate Highway System. Imagine what Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin would be saying about him if he were on the scene today. Eisenhower was convinced that whatever the cost, the programs he supported were essential for the future of America.

Forty-five miles north of Sacramento, Yuba City High School where I had my first teaching assignment served farmers and tradespeople. Eighteen hundred students, most of whose parents had not attended college, could participate in programs that are not offered in most high schools today. They had a choice of Spanish, French, German, and Latin in the Foreign Language Department. An orchestra, a marching band, and several choirs, including one called “The Concert Choir,” offered music experience and training. Two full-time art teachers offered a wide range of classes that don’t exist in most schools today. Vocational training courses that are rare today were strong programs at Yuba City High. I was fortunate to learn in that school the wisdom in Aristotle’s insistence that educating the heart is essential. In that school I discovered that learning happens most efficiently when the learner needs to know and wants to know... that it is an active process which engages the learner in planning, revising, and reflecting on the processes of education. Essential rsources have been gradually cut from school budgets. The people in the park today were insisting... pleading would be a better way to put it... that no more cuts be made to programs in public schools. We must somehow make our way back to earlier values in education in order to move into the future correctly.
Dave and Clyde Yoshida... For the photo below I couldn't resist Clyde's yellow rims...