For my first couple of USC blog entries I feel it’s fitting to provide commentary about the July 20, 2011, MAT@USC brown bag lunch meeting with San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) Superintendent Carlos Garcia. Garcia, who has spent over 37 years in education as a teacher, principal and district administrator, left UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall as a young man in order to work on the front lines as a teacher to address the tragedy, suffering, and inequality he was all too familiar with after having grown up in an LA barrio. Today as leader of the 56,000-student SFUSD, Garcia’s leadership is guided by a strategic plan entitled, Beyond the Talk: Taking Action to Education Every Child Now.
Fast forward to the 20th of July…
It’s a sunny San Francisco afternoon and I find myself sitting around a conference table with USC students and alums. In walks Carlos Garcia, exuberant and charismatic. After brief intros around the table, Garcia begins to tell his story. He speaks of a childhood in a high-crime, high-poverty LA neighborhood, a college experience where affirmative action was often presumed to be the sole reason for his admission, and a child development class that led him to pursue a teaching career.
Garcia then enters into a discussion on education and policy. “I’m a teacher who happens to be a superintendent and I am proud of the position of teaching.” Continuing he observed, “In our culture we devalue teaching. And we’ve lost our professionalism.”
When prompted to elaborate on his understanding of professionalism, Garcia gave an example. “It’s teachers talking about pedagogy and teaching. It is teachers who are dynamic enough to get kids excited about learning.” Garcia tells a story about one school where teachers created “families” to support one another and share best practices. Even more, the families served to identify “weak links” or those staff members who were not contributing meaningfully to the professional environment of teachers or the learning environment of students.
Garcia’s comments on professionalism struck a chord with me. Was he right? Have teachers lost their professionalism? How often do we see “families” or programs like it in our schools?
There will be more to come from the Trojan brown bag lunch meeting with SFUSD Superintendent Carlos Garcia. In the meantime, if you are interested in organizing a similar event in your area, I highly encourage you to do so as opening communication between pre-service or newly credentialed teachers and district offices is something that needs to happen much more. All that it takes to facilitate an event is a few phone calls and coordination with the USC offices. Go forth and set it up for USC students in your area. Fight on!
