I love living in Chicago. I have loving family members here,
amazing friends, a great job, and so many outlets for excitement, leisure, and
cultural enlightenment.
That’s why I was
thrilled when I heard that there was a docuseries
on CNN called Chicagoland that would
highlight my wonderful city.
As I’ve been watching the show…I’ve experienced a range of
intense emotions. Sadness, pride, laughter, disappointment, and perhaps a
surreal acceptance that I am in the trenches of one the show’s most pressing issues…Chicago
Public Schools education. Yes, I participated in the Chicago Public Schools
teacher strike, it actually served as fodder for one of the first posts I did
on this blog. Yes I maintained employment during the largest school
closings/consolidations in American history.
Yes I teach at a welcoming school (schools that receive students from
nearby schools that were closed) that is next to a dangerous and gang-ridden
housing project.
Sometimes I get so
focused on my daily lessons, grading, paperwork, planning, bulletin boards,
behavior problems, and extracurricular activities that I don’t zoom out and
recognize that Chicago Public School students are in a crisis.
A crisis of discrepancy is ramped amongst
student safety, extracurricular and cultural exposure, teacher student ratio
and access to nutritious foods. I was stunned when I learned that CPS was only
9% white, which means that it’s majority black and brown. That means in
buildings throughout Chicago most of Chicago’s white kids are receiving a
different, dare I even say better educational experience that is not plagued by
gun violence, fear and intimidation when walking to and from school, a
classroom that does not have 44 first graders, and more exposure to Chicago’s
rich cultural enhancements.
And I’d just
like to state…I’m not relying on anecdotes of others or a projected narrative
that Chicagoland producers are trying to tell. Over the last month a 7
th
grade student at my school has gotten shot, and on one of the first nice days
where students could go outside for recess, that time was ended abruptly
because gun shots were fired right outside the corner/fence of my school. I
know that is not the case for all CPS schools, which is a good thing, yet it
also causes inadequacies in CPS’ ability to provide an equal and quality
education for all.
Sprinkled throughout Chicagoland are glimpses of one of my
BEST friends from college. She is Mayor Emmanuel’s Press Secretary and I always
get so excited when I see her. I am super proud of her and I always text her
and comment on her fashion and professional demeanor. I’m sure she and I may
have our differences about how Chicago Public Schools business is being handled
and I know she finds the Chicagoland education narrative a bit
sensationalized. However one thing that
I know we agree on is, “…your zip code should not determine your life outcome.
Opportunity and exposure are everything.” That’s actually a direct quote she
said over a text message when discussing our views about the show. I know that we both want the same thing for
Chicago’s kids…while we may be going on different and intersecting paths to get
the kids there, we are sitting down to create and collaborate on real exposure opportunities
for my students. I look forward to the respect that we’ll show each other in
trying to understand our different and shared opinions. I look forward to the
partnership and work that we’ll do together on behalf of the kids. There won’t
be any cameras documenting what we do…but that’s what lets me know that she and
I, Chicago city workers, are both on the right side of making this city the
amazing place that it is.
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