acceptance speech

PREMISE: At the age of 86, I have won a lifetime achievement award in activism for helping fix our country’s education system through a career as a teacher, writer, and lobbyist.

When I was a freshman in high school I considered myself somewhat of an “inactive activist.” I wanted to work toward the greater good, but... I was busy. Homework, parties... the internet. And such. But no matter how little I did for my causes,  I was a radical lipstick feminist who wanted to grow up and become a teacher.

Of course, that was the year of the teacher’s strike- when the hours went up and the pay didn’t, when Rahm decided maybe he didn’t feel like getting re-elected after all. We were out of school for a week right at the start of the year. Young, fresh-faced fifteen-year-old Georgia had little idea what was going on, but she knew she loved her teachers, and she knew that she would one day work among them, and she knew she wanted to fight for what was right. And they won! -at least, I think they did. I was never clear on what they were after.

This was also the year my grades began to slip. Blame the internet, blame friends, blame the fun, but I blamed the system. I could’ve been a little biased, but whatever my reasons I think I hit something. I was caught where teachers were stretched so very thin with no time for help, with such dismal pay my Spanish teacher worked two other jobs. My fellow students and I were swept away in a sea of tests, unable to see the patterns of thought and skills we needed to be learning. I was taught in a world where every time I asked a friend how they were today the answer was always “tired,” or “hungry.” And maybe I probably could’ve done better, but I didn’t want to, because I didn’t see the point, and I sure as hell didn’t want to stay in that stupid building any second longer than I had to. I needed to got home, straight away, so I could do three hours of work and worry myself to sleep (or not). That year I had three friends out of school for extended periods of time with depression, and more than that still in school. That was the year I looked around myself and said, “this cannot go on.”

The moral of this story being- I did not sit down and despair. This is the story of how I saw a problem and I decided to fix it. This is the story that changed my life, that motivated my hard work to get myself, my students, and my country to where it is today.