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Merry Christmas Chi-Town....
And here I thought I had the blogosphere exclusive, but Victor beat me to it just a few minutes ago. Dang.
On a side note, the history teacher quoted works at Fenger High School, also known in the blogger world as "Regnef", or "Fast Times at Regnef High". The guy that wrote that is gone. If Fenger is half as bad as Regnef, er, Fenger sounded on the blog, then I wouldn't be surprised why the guy is leaving.
UPDATE #1: Edspresso picked up on the story and opined why it's the union's fault here.
UPDATE #2: Props to Victor from CTSO, as he surmised the idea of a Chicago strike as Detroit was in full-on strike mode in September, a full three months prior to it hitting the papers.
UPDATE #3: For whatever reason, the Homeslice Radar didn't pick up on this article out of San Fran's Examiner.
One teacher called the strike talk "unprecedented" so far in advance, but when 80% of your membership joined after your last strike (in the late 80's) you, as a union do not have the needed institutional memory to keep alive the ideal of a strike-- that is the a battle picked, joined, fought and won.
Never having been through a strike myself, I can remember as a young teacher many years ago hearing the "old timers" reminiscing about it like it was a battle. Some would shake their heads. Others would recount the friends they lost in the process of the job action because their friends crossed the picket lines. Others would name those who crossed the lines and were still in the system, with a venom or detachment unlike I had ever heard.
In the beginning I was surprised how much the strike was mentioned, even though it had happened about ten years before I started. In fact, I thought it was overkill to mention it so much. Things are fine now, why do they keep bringing that strike up? I thought. Then it came to me:
The reason things were "fine" now was because people went out on a limb and struck for each other and every single teacher that would come after them.
In solidarity,
Doc.
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