EDUSolidarity Day, Part 2: Stanley Fish, formerly opposed to teacher unions, changed his mind — “We’re all badgers now”

March 22, 2011

WordPress was down for a few hours this afternoon, and I had a longish meeting this evening.  I’m running behind.

While I’m gearing up to get my promised comments up, take a look at Stanley Fish’s post at his New York Times blog:

In over 35 years of friendship and conversation, Walter Michaels and I have disagreed on only two things, and one of them was faculty and graduate student unionization. He has always been for and I had always been against. I say “had” because I recently flipped and what flipped me, pure and simple, was Wisconsin.

When I think about the reasons (too honorific a word) for my previous posture I become embarrassed. They are by and large the reasons rehearsed and apparently approved by Naomi Schaefer Riley in her recent op-ed piece “Why unions hurt higher education” (USA Today). The big reason was the feeling — hardly thought through sufficiently to be called a conviction — that someone with an advanced degree and scholarly publications should not be in the same category as factory workers with lunch boxes and hard hats. As Riley points out, even the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) used to be opposed to unionization because of “the commonly held belief that universities were not corporations and faculty were not employees.”

Good discussion from smart guys.  Go see.

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Posted by Ed Darrell

EDUSolidarity Day

March 22, 2011



From the EDUSolidarity site:

Throughout the day of March 22, teachers will be sharing posts entitled “Why Teachers Like Us Support Unions”.  For those of you here to share, thank you for doing so.  To submit your posts, click here.

For those of you not sharing, we hope you will take the time to read from an extremely varied and wide variety of teachers across the country and world.  We ask that you read with open minds.  You will read many different reasons for support, some of them contradictory.  What all stories will share though is a desire to serve students.  We all feel that teachers unions give us the best shot to give our students the best possible education.

The full list of posts can be found here.

If you’re a blogger and you want to join us, please do.  Send the link to your post to the EDUSolidarity site — and let us know about it here, in comments.

Teachers in New York City are wearing red in support of union teachers (so are some in Dallas).

Of course, this is a part-time activity for those of us who teach.  I don’t have my post up yet, and may not until the school day is over.

We’re professional teachers, not professional lobbyists.  We don’t have billionaires paying for our political speech, only our hearts and minds.

Other bloggers’ contributions

  1. Rachel Levy at All Things Education
  2. Sarah Puglisi at A Day in the Life
  3. Leo Casey at EdWize
  4. Sherman Dorn
  5. f(t)
  6. Gregg Lundahl at Edwize
  7. Doug Noon – Borderland – Fairbanks, AK.
  8. Jamie Josephson – Dontworryteach – Washington, DC.
  9. Kate Nowak – f(t) – Syracuse, NY.
  10. Sabrina Stevens Shupe – Failing Schools – Denver, CO.
  11. Jonathan – jd2718 – Bronx, NY.
  12. Anthony Cody – Living in Dialogue – Oakland, CA.
  13. Stephen Lazar – Outside the Cave – Gotham Schools – Bronx, NY.
  14. Nancy Flanagan – Teacher in a Strange Land – Cedar, MI.
  15. Ken Bernstein aka “teacherken” – teacherken at Daily Kos – Arlington, VA. teacherken
  16. Jose Vilson – The Jose Vilson – New York, NY. thejlv
  17. Sophie Germain – A Brand New Line – Santa Clara, CA. sophgermain
  18. Sarah Puglisi – A Day In the Life – Oxnard, CA.
  19. Jeff Silva-Brown – A Passion for Teaching and Opinions – Ukiah, CA. ukiahcoachbrown
  20. Dan Anderson – A Recursive Process – Saratoga Springs, NY. dandersod
  21. Mr. A. Talk – Accountable Talk – New York, NY.
  22. Frank Noschese – Action-Reaction – Cross River, NY. fnoschese
  23. Lisa Butler – Adventures with Technology – Harrisburg, PA. SrtaLisa
  24. Rachel Levy – All Things Education – Ashland, VA. RachelAnneLevy
  25. Jason Buell – Always Formative – San Jose, CA. jybuell
  26. The Reflective Educator – An Urban Teacher’s Education – New York, NY. urbanteachersed
  27. Apple A Day – Apple A Day Project – Boston, MA. appleadayproj
  28. Amy Valens – August to June: Bringing Life to School – New York, NY. augusttojune
  29. Chana – Blogging at the Edge of Democracy – Durham, NC. democracysedge
  30. Bud Hunt – Bud the Teacher – Fort Collins, CO. budtheteacher
  31. Chaz – Chaz’s School Daze – Queens, NY.
  32. Marc Bousquet – Chronicle of Higher Education – Los Gatos, CA.
  33. David Coffey – Delta Scape – Spring Lake, MI. delta_dc
  34. Leo Casey – Dissent Magazine – New York, NY.
  35. Brent Nycz – Don’t Settle – New York, NY. BNiche
  36. Peter – Ed in the Apple – New York, NY.
  37. Norm Scott – Education Notes – Rockaway Beach, NY.
  38. Deven Black – Education on the Plate – New York City, NY. devenkblack
  39. David Andrade – Educational Technology Guy – Bridgeport, CT. daveandcori
  40. educator4WI – educator4WI – Madison, WI.
  41. Francis S. Midy – EduSolidarity Essays – Bronx, NY.
  42. Suzanne Donahue – EduSolidarity Essays – Rockland County, NY.
  43. Eric Brunsell – Edutopia – STEM Blog – Appleton, WI. Brunsell
  44. Esther Berkson – Edwize – Bronx, NY.
  45. Jason Leibowitz – Edwize – New York, NY.
  46. Jessica Jacobs – Edwize – Staten Island, NY.
  47. Lissette Velazquez – Edwize – New York, NY.
  48. Marc Korashan – Edwize – New York, NY.
  49. Roseanne McCosh – Edwize – Bronx, NY.
  50. Jenny – Elementary, My Dear, or Far From It – Springfield, VA. jenorr
  51. Marie Levey-Pabst – English Teachin’ Vegan – Boston, MA.
  52. Christal Watts – Five Feet of Feisty – Fairfield, CA. christal_watts
  53. Jay Bullock – folkbum’s rambles and rants – Milwaukee, WI. folkbum
  54. Fred Klonsky – Fred Klonsky’s Blog – Chicago, IL. fklonsky
  55. Zeno – Halfway There – Northern CA.
  56. Mimi Yang – I Hope This Old Train Breaks Down… – El Salvador (formerly NYC). untilnextstop
  57. Cathy B – I.M.O. In My Opinion – Detroit, MI. Cathy_Brackett
  58. David B. Cohen – InterACT – Palo Alto, CA. CohenD
  59. Ruben Brosbe – Is Our Children Learning? – New York, NY. blogsbe
  60. Lynne Winderbaum – jd2718 (friend’s blog) – Rockland County, NY.
  61. Larry Ferlazzo – Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of The Day – Sacramento, CA. larryferlazzo
  62. Julia Tsygan – Learning (by) Teaching – Stockholm, Sweden.
  63. Kathryn Coffey – Literacy Gurl – Spring Lake, MI. literacygurl
  64. Gregg Lundahl – Lundahl – New York, NY.
  65. Brian Cohen – Making the Grade – Philadelphia, PA. bncohen
  66. Mark Anderson – MAnderson’s Bubble – New York, NY. mandercorn
  67. Nick Yates – Maryland Math Madness – Baltimore, MD. nyates314
  68. Curmudgeon – Math Curmudgeon – VT.
  69. Chris Hill – Math is a Shovel – Seattle, WA. hillby258
  70. Sue VanHattum – Math Mama Writes – Richmond, CA.
  71. Owen Thomas – MathEdZineBlog – Columbus, OH. vlorbik
  72. John Golden – mathhombre – Grand Haven, MI. mathhombre
  73. Miss Adventure – Miss Adventure’s Adventures – GA.
  74. Michael Dunn – Modern School – San Francisco, CA. ModSchool
  75. Bill Ivey – My Blog at ISENET.ning.com – Shelburne Falls, MA.
  76. Tricia DiPasquale – My Life – Somerville, MA. PDiPasquale
  77. Kristen Fouss – My Web 2.0 journey – Cincinnati, OH. fouss
  78. Courtney Ferrell – No Teacher Left Behind – New York, NY.
  79. Miss Eyre – NYC Educator – New York, NY.
  80. Christopher Sears – Omega Unlimited – Maysville, KY.
  81. Stephen Lazar – Outside the Cave – Bronx, NY. SLazarOtC
  82. John Mcrann – Outside the Cave (guest post) – Bronx, NY.
  83. Penelope Millar – Outside the Cave (Guest post) – VA. PetiteViking
  84. Alexa – Pas Pour Tout Les Yeux (personal blog, mostly private) – Chicago, IL.
  85. Chris Spiliotis – passing notes – Enterprise, FL. _thelink
  86. Pat Ballew – Pat’s Blog – USA.
  87. Peggy Robertson – Peg with Peg – Centennial, CO. PegwithPen
  88. Brendan Murphy – Philosophy Without A Home – Waukegan IL. dendari
  89. pissedoffteacher – Pissedoffteacher – Queens, NY.
  90. Chris Lehmann – Practical Theory – Philadelphia, PA. chrislehmann
  91. Gamal Sherif – ProgressEd – Philadelphia, PA.
  92. Alice Mercer – Reflections on Teaching – Sacramento, CA. alicemercer
  93. Chuck Olynyk – Remember Fremont – Pomona, CA.
  94. Nancy Cavillones – Se Hace Camino al Andar – Bronx, NY.
  95. Shakespeare’s Sister – Shakespeare’s Sister – CO. shakes_sister
  96. Sherman Dorn – Sherman Dorn – Tampa, FL. shermandorn
  97. Chris Janotta – SOS Million Teacher Blog Site – Tinley Park IL. SOSMTM
  98. Ira David Socol – SpeEdChange – Holland, MI. irasocol
  99. Maria Angala – Teacher Sol – Washington, DC. TeacherSol
  100. Mary Rice-Boothe – The Education Traveler – New York, NY. Edu_Traveler
  101. Jose Vilson – The Jose Vilson – New York, NY. thejlv
  102. Timothy Boyle – The Notebook – Philadelphia, PA.
  103. Samuel Reed – The Philadelphia Public School Notebook – Philadelphia, PA. sriii2000
  104. Kelly Mueller – The Power of Accomplished Teaching – St. Louis, MO. lkelly46
  105. Rich Trash – The Trashman’s Disposable Reader – Queens, NY. RichTrash
  106. David Reber – Topeka K-12 Examiner – Lawrence, KS. David_Reber
  107. Tuba Bauhofer – Tuba Bauhofer – Kent. springrose12
  108. Mary Tedrow – Walking to School – Winchester, VA. mtedrow
  109. Katie Svoboda – What’s on Katie’s Mind? – Sturgis, MI.
  110. Paul Wagner – zenbassoon at Daily Kos – Hebron, IN. BssnistPaul

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Posted by Ed Darrell