My daughter's Moral Monday field trip
On Monday evening, my daughter and I joined several hundred others outside the Capitol in Raleigh, North Carolina. We were there for the latest in a series of Moral Monday rallies organized to oppose the legislature’s policies toward (among other things) social programs, education, environmental legislation, and voting rights.
The statehouse is a solid 90-minute drive from our house, so it makes for a long evening on a school night. My daughter was more engaged than I thought she’d be; I fully expected to have to bribe her with the promise of ice cream on the way home. But she got a kick out of holding the signs she and her friend had made in the car. “Support our teachers!” one said; the other: “I like my teacher. Pay her more!” Every time someone came by with a camera, she held her sign extra high and grinned.
As a first-grader, her life revolves around school. She doesn’t understand the complexities of teacher tenure, but she loves her teacher and she gets it when we talk about making sure the school has all the support it needs.
