Bizzaro Betsy

So I promised yesterday that I would tell about all the interruptions and distractions in my guest speaking at Mac High. Here was the biggest hurdle. On Wednesday afternoon, when I was slated to speak about William Stafford one more time, the United States Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, is making an appearance at the school to see why they have made such progress in test scores, especially with lower-income students. So Betsy, the self-proclaimed Queen of Anti-Public Education, trumps me as a guest speaker. I was very impressed with the students in this class, as they knew exactly who was coming to see them, and knew exactly what kind of statements she has made against funding public education. They are angry, but they acknowledged that they will be respectful. I won't be there, but I imagine they will pretty much ignore her.

So what did I do? In my passive protest of Betsy's appearance, I left this poem on the board. It is in keeping with the Stafford Studies for the week, one from Kim Stafford, William Stafford's son, a personal friend of mine. It will be on the board, but I somehow doubt that Betsy will be one to pick up the symbolic subtlety of language - I think she'll miss the message. But it's there for her, nonetheless. The button here in the picture is from a group of us resistors, the Guy Fawkes group, but that's another long story. By the way, there are public protests being planned outside of the school. 

And one more time to work in a Tom Petty line, this time for good old Betsy herself: "In a world gone mad, yer so bad."

Here is Kim's poem, more easily read (these were written, by the way, after the inauguration last January, as a way for us to consider a sane way forward):

Stand and Bow Down

"Keep your voice down and your head up when trouble come,"
my father said.
"Shouting leads to blows, and blows to everyone losing what 
the fight was for."

I see the sturdy tree stand tall, then bend when wind comes.
I watch grass outlast the storm.

When a leader shouts, you have to listen better 
than he knows how. You have to be what he might 

learn to say, if you are eloquent in witness.

                            - Kim Stafford -