I'm the second son of two native Oklahomans. Johnnie and Nina Edwards Lynch were born shortly after the Great War ended and teenage parents during the Great Depression and young adults during World War II. They attended small public schools, one being Cathey school in the Eufaula area. But neither graduated. It pained my mother that she didn't acquire a high school diploma and she was very proud of the fact that she acquired her GED, as I was finishing up a University degree. They traveled the Mother Road more than once, making pilgrimages to Arizona and California for work and my brother Joel, born in 1936, lived the life of a vagabond in his earliest years. He attended public schools in California and Oklahoma.
My mother Nina, brother Joel, and father Johnnie. Mom could strike a pose… and dad had swagger before this generation knew what it was… notice the tilt of his hat.
They eventually settled back in Oklahoma, only to once again follow the work, this time in the oil field. Dad was a roughneck and driller in the oil patches around the state. When I was born in the hot summer of 1958, he was still working on those rigs.
My grandfather John “Pop” Lynch (WWI veteran), my father Johnnie, and Uncle Jess on a rig site.
So twenty-two years after their first one, in the summer of 1958… surprise, surprise, surprise.
My mother and father both valued education. They knew it was the path to something better, and that's what their generation wanted for their children - better. They knew what they lacked to climb to the next pay scale, or even a chance to land a job, and that was a formal education. I remember my mother saying that dad worked up to the position of driller, but that was as far as he could go without a high school diploma.
So when my brother Joel graduated from high school, my dad took him to the oil patch. And he worked him like, in my mom's words, “a dog”. Johnnie's crew called my mother and pleaded with her to make dad back off as they were afraid he was going to work him to death. Dad wanted to make sure that his boy took that opportunity to go play basketball at the University and get his education. So Joel graduated from public school in Ada, Oklahoma and attended Oklahoma Baptist University and East Central State College, eventually graduating from East Central State with a degree in History education. He spent his entire career in the panhandle of Texas as a teacher, coach and administrator. And all three of his children are public school products and educators as well. And it looks like two of his grandchildren are joining the profession as well.
Mom and dad were proud of their son Joel for pursuing higher education, shown here wearing his OBU letter jacket. I can hear the “Happy Days” theme song playing in the background…
So when I graduated from Ada High School in 1976, I followed the same path as my brother and studied history and government at what was now East Central University. My plan was to coach track and teach history. But in 1981, I chose to finish a degree without teacher certification and go to work to support my family. My job during college paid as much as I could make teaching school at the time. In the meantime, my wife Debbie started her University career and followed her dream of being a business teacher, just like her mentor. She too, was a first generation college graduate. Shortly after she took her first job, I went back to the University and finished what I had started seven years earlier.
And so my wife and I have spent most of our adult life as educators. She has spent most of her career at her Alma mater, Latta Public Schools, and was recognized in 2002 for her achievements in the classroom by being named a finalist for State Teacher of the Year. She is the celebrity educator in the family. Her parents also valued a public school education, and I'm sure that her mother was never more proud of her daughter than at that moment. She has been the IT Director at Latta for several years and is chiefly responsible for building their technology infrastructure from the ground up. As for myself, I spent fourteen years teaching in the secondary classroom, spent another ten working in professional development working specifically with American history teachers and teaching education courses at my Alma Mater East Central University, and have most recently returned to public school as a middle school principal. This summer we will complete our 27th and 30th year as educators. Suddenly we find ourselves the veterans in the building. We would both say that time flies when you’re having fun.
We were on a TAH grant trip to Boston with about 30 teachers and spouses. We just missed Norm…
There are some things I have lived to see that I couldn't foresee ever happening. As a child of the Cold War, I couldn't perceive a world that didn't include the Soviet Union. I remember the automobiles of the 60’s and the 80's, and I never thought muscle cars would make a comeback. And my wife was shocked when high waisted jeans made a comeback, but alas that too has happened.
And I am witnessing yet another thing I thought I would never see, and that is the potential demise of public education as we know and love it. I have seen it coming over the course of the last ten years or so. High stakes testing was an early omen, and it brought with it the educational industrial complex of companies to feed that monster. Follow the money. Those tests will be the evidence that so called education “reformers” will use to prove that our students, teachers and schools are failing, but we knew better. And then millionaires and billionaires and corporations and politicians decided that they knew what was wrong with education and they have been busy "reforming" education for us as a public service. Keep following the money. And of course, every businessperson knows the best way to run any institution is to run it like a business, so it was decided that the real answer is to turn our public schools into businesses. Keep up with me … and follow the money. There is profit to be made in those schools and we all know that profit motive and education go hand in hand. Aha… the money. The problem with that idea … is that schools aren’t businesses and your children and my grandchildren are not widgets.
Their agenda has crept into the states and it is in our state house. Yes sir, we have trouble, and it’s right here in Oklahoma City. Certain State lawmakers want to arbitrarily consolidate your schools based on nothing but spreadsheet numbers. Politicians and private interests want to funnel public school funds into subsidies for those who choose private or charter schools. This unholy alliance of politicians, corporations and policy makers want to close your public schools entirely or perhaps replace them with charter schools or private schools. They want to replace your highly qualified, trained, certified teachers with, well someone who will work cheaper because that's just good business. If you and I allow this to happen, when it’s all said and done, and they’ve accomplished their agenda, if you have a school left in your community, you will not recognize it. The few remaining public schools will be left for those that can’t afford an alternative and will be poorly funded and neglected as the trend has become.
I watched several high school basketball playoff games this year. Teams and communities traveled half way across the state to support their teams. They cheered, they celebrated, they mourned losses and they supported those student athletes as if were their own. Their "kids". Their town. Their school. Their history, their tradition. It occurred to me, that if these people knew what the current political intentions were for their schools, they would rally that type of support to stop it from happening. And that's exactly what it will take, everyday people, citizens, parents, students, and grandparents taking political action.
And it is our obligation to ring the bell. We must take it to the streets and announce that they are coming and they are coming to take my profession, peoples jobs, your schools, and in some cases, our very communities. If we value public education, we must unite in purpose and in numbers large enough to overcome the attack.
It reminds me of Gandalf's quote from The Hobbit. “Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”
And in this case... perhaps a little revolt and dissension.
