Upstander Reflections

Today makes one week since Trump was sworn in as President. I wouldn't believe it if I wasn't there but it began raining immediately after he was sworn in. I don't believe in superstitions like that but I must say--it felt eerie. Trump swearing in I call this post juxtaposition because of something that happened this week at school. If you don't know that word don't feel dumb. I didn't know it either until I was sitting in grad school classes and people kept saying it. Eventually, I looked it up. It means when two things are happening side-by-side or at the same time and they can be compared or contrasted. A funny juxtaposition https://satanicviews.wordpress.com/tag/juxtaposition/ Mr. Trump did a lot of things this week but there was an interesting juxtaposition that occurred in my world that I would like to discuss. On Wednesday at about 1pm central time, we had a presentation at school by Angel and Demetrius. Angel is Mexican-American...

Hope and Fear: Reflections of a high school teacher on tour at the Inauguration -Mike Walsh January 18-20 2017 Part 1: Hope and Fear My travel companions are a combination of old and new America. I am a teacher, chaperoning 24 students from Intrinsic Schools, a charter school in Chicago. Of the 24, the students are European Americans (White), African Americans, Asian Americans but the majority of them are Hispanic Americans. However, EF Tours (our tour company) has partnered us with a suburban school with little diversity. Of their 12 students most are white. The chaperones of both schools are white, our EF tour guide is a young African American Women and our bus driver is an older white gentleman who proudly wears his Trump hat. The Intrinsic Students We are America. We're White, Black, Hispanic, Asian and/or any combination of races. We're men and women. We're old and young. We're working class and middle class. We’re gay and straight. And we are al...