Chicago Teachers Union to celebrate ‘Black Lives Matter at School Month’ in February

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) House of Delegates has passed a resolution during their meeting on January 10th. The resolution promises that teachers and members will celebrate Black Lives Matter throughout February, with union members donning t-shirts and incorporating at least one approved lesson into their classrooms.

According to the CTU's resolution, there is also an emphasis on advocacy that aligns with "the national demands for hiring more Black teachers and ending the pushout of Black teachers in our schools, proper implementation of restorative practices in schools and ending zero tolerance discipline, teaching students Black history and other ethnic studies curricula."

The resolution mandates members to conduct "one or more lessons" in the classroom between Feb. 5 and Feb. 16, and share photos and lesson plans with the union. The CTU has designated Feb. 5 - 9 as the week for preparation, offering educator workshops, and Feb. 12 - 15 as the week for teaching.

The CTU represents 23,371 Chicago Public Schools teachers. It is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers– chartered in 1937 as its Local 1– and the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations).

It was quite simple. She taught methods used long ago — starting with mastery of rote memorization of times tables, no calculators, pencil and paper. Plus LOTS of one-on-one time with the kids and parents. Maybe most importantly of all, she ignored all the new fads coming out of the teacher’s colleges with their horribly pedantic language and incomprehensible math methods. She always saw math education in a “doom loop” (to borrow the latest phrase).

* Scores went down
* New fad from teacher’s colleges introduced.
* Scores went down
* Bring in a new fad from teacher’s colleges.
* Whoops! That fad didn’t work and scores went down
* Let’s try the latest fad from teacher’s colleges.

And so it went for decades.

Like school districts all over the country, the schools got WAY top-heavy with highly-paid, know-nothing and useless “administrators.” (the administrator/teacher ratio exploded over the decades) These were usually people, often young, who had never taught but they KNEW exactly how to teach based on their book-learning. She would have them in the room “observing” and they would then tell her what she was doing wrong. She ignored every one of them, too, and went on with her tried-and-proven methods. She often skipped the utterly stupid, useless, and time-wasting “Professional Development Days,” too.

She would get her classroom prepared a month before school started. They younger teachers would show up with unprepared rooms a couple days before the new classes started. She worked hard throughout the summer getting ready. She paid for many kids’ supplies because they were poor, too. Teachers often do that. It was a tough financial burden because she never made a lot of money teaching.

She would get called on the carpet for ignoring everything the administration shoved her way, but she had a tough hide, and figured they would never fire her because she delivered outstanding results. And she was right. They were always miffed because she would not comply, but she delivered the goods.

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