Yesterday was a victory for many educators when Vincent Gray won the democratic primary for mayor of the District of Columbia. On the morning after the primary (Wednesday), when I arrived at the school house door, teachers stopped me in the halls to express their delight about Gray's win. Some gave a nod, some winked while others smiled, one did a little jig and some took just a minute to ask "did you watch the primary results on the news last night ?" I couldn't help but feel all the positive vibrations and energy that were abuzz in the air.
This got me to thinking about my favorite bible verse "to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun." While raising my son- (now 21 and legal), I often used this bible passage to teach him some of life's hardest lessons. For Gray it is now a season to plant, to laugh, to dance and a time to seek new possibilities. For Fenty it is a time to lose, a time to weep, a time to mourn, a time to pluck up that which is planted and a time to reflect. As we have read that during Fenty's campaign he had advisers and supporters who tried to help him change course to get in touch with voters along the way, however, he (Fenty) wouldn't hear of it. While it's too little too late for a campaign victory, it's never too late to learn lessons that life and the school of hard knocks has to offer us. While reading an education list serve, I came across Jackie Pinckney-Hackett's top ten lessons learned from the DC primary election. Maybe Fenty and company will take heed as failure presents us an opportunity to intelligently begin again or maybe he (Fenty) will just keep on keeping on as he has been. In the event, he's listening here's Jackie's ten lessons learned from the DC primary:
1. Dictatorships Don't Work in DC
2. School Reform without Parent & Community Involvement is not welcomed
3. Being Nice and Showing that you CARE counts as VOTES
4. RHEE-member that the people who VOTED you IN can VOTE you OUT
5. It's not what you do but how you do it (do it with the people)
6. Mother Knows Best (Mother Williams supported Gray, while her son supported Fenty)
7. Crying won't change anything
8. ENDORSEMENTS are not VOTES
9. Sometimes it's too late to APOLOGIZE
10. President Obama AIN'T stupid
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