To Fly

 On and on. 

School shootings. 

Schools blown up by war. 

Schools closed from lack of funds. 

I work at a school named for the "Father of Public Education," and it was recently on a list set forth by our district to be closed. Families in our city are frequently caught unaware by the way the school they have chosen for their children just stopped. No classes. No lunches. No safe place to learn. 

Meanwhile, a billion dollars a day is being spent to destroy those schools in Iran. The sad irony of my least favorite poster of all time, "It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber" is lost. Finding our way back to a world in which the ideal Horace Mann set forth, “Education is our only political safety. Outside of this ark all is deluge.”

We are currently lost in the flood. 

Schools are expendable for those who cannot afford it. The notion of public education has been subverted and chopped into pieces to buy those smart bombs that still need someone to guide them. 

I am on the cusp of retiring from a thirty year career in public education, but when people look at me sideways and ask, "Can you really just walk away?" I tell them that I don't think I will be far away from the institution that gave me the wings I have to fly. 

I'll be returning to the nest. To protect it. To keep it safe. To keep it open. For another generation of those in need of feathers.