Author: Sharron Burnett

I landed my first job in a public school when I was nineteen years old and a student at the University of Houston. I competed to earn a post as a teachers’ aide at Elliot Elementary School in the Denver Harbor neighborhood of Houston, Texas. Since I had attended private Catholic schools all the way through high school, I hoped to get a feel for life in a public school before I invested too much time and effort in pursuing a degree in education. 

This was back in 1968, when I was as green and naive as they come. I had hardly ventured out of my neighborhood for most of my life up until then. Aside from my third grade year when I attended five different schools and lost my father to a car accident, I was a sheltered as anyone might be. I had no idea what I might encounter in a public school located in the east end of Houston, Texas not far from the ship channel and the home where my mother had come of age. It was located in a neighborhood where the people and the cultures were different from my experiences. 

I took to the teachers and the students immediately. The school had a welcoming spirit and the outstanding educators whom I was hired to support were eager to use me for more duties than just watching children during lunchtime or running off worksheets and tests on the mimeograph machines. They urged me to interact with the students, to manage reading groups, tp tutor one on one or in small groups. I was busy all day long and I loved every minute of the adventure. I felt assured that I was indeed preparing for the right vocation. 

In spite of my enthusiasm there was one aspect of the school that made me feel uncomfortable. The students classified as having special learning needs due to both mental and physical disabilities were segregated from the rest of the school. Each morning small buses headed for a drab building in a far corner of the school property. There the special education students spent their days encased in a kind of mystery since I never really saw them or witnessed what was happening in their classrooms. They even ate lunch just before the other students arrived at the cafeteria. Somehow their plight seemed lonely and it almost felt as though they were being hidden away like some tragic mistake that nobody wanted to see or discuss. 

There came a time when an outbreak of flu left the faculty depleted to the point that I was moving from one classroom to another attempting to fill in for the absent teachers. Eventually there came a call from the special education building and I found myself walking across the lawn with my throat in my chest. I had know idea what I was going to find and how I would deal with it given my total lack of experience with such things. 

There were only a small number of students in the building and for the most part it felt as though they were mostly being watched over without a great deal of concern for making academic progress. Everything about the furniture and lack of color or a sense of creativity was depressing. Most of the students seemed almost unaware that I was even there. Now again a fight would break out or a child would begin screaming for no apprentice reason. I felt very uncomfortable in the situation and decided in that moment that I would definitely not consider specializing in teaching students with learning needs and physical disabilities. 

I eventually earned my degree after a few fits and starts. I began teaching four year olds in a private setting and while it was delightful I wanted more of a challenge. Before I had a chance to try out a public school the nuns at my church recruited me to run the religious education program. While I loved the idea of being the first ever lay person tasked to carry out that job in our parish, I eventually felt a call to finally work full time in a public school. As if someone was trying to send me a message public school positions were few and far between so I went back into the classroom via a private school where I literally taught all of the middle school mathematics. 

It was not until 1984, that I finally began working in a public school setting. By then Jimmy Carter had created the Department of Education whose main duties involved administering special programs, with a strong emphasis on strengthening the education of special needs students by creating training and guidelines to include them in regular classrooms whenever possible. Their isolation ended and even those with the most difficult problems learned in sunny rooms with dedicated specialists creating individual learning plans that allowed the children to expand their abilities and work toward being part of regular classroom interactions. 

It was glorious to see them smiling and confident and doing so well. The difference that the new guidelines and support systems made for them were breathtaking and I found myself feeling rather drawn to the joy of watching them succeed.

I will never forget an occasion when I had a room full of special needs students sprinkled in with a group of students who did not meet the specifics of a special education rubric but were nonetheless reluctant learners who needed extra time and differing styles of teaching to engage them. I was using mathematics to demonstrate critical thinking skills to them when a group of visitors from the administration building suddenly appeared to observe what was happening in my classroom. The kids rose to the occasion and showed off their knowledge and confidence in every way. Later I received a sweet note from one of the visitors commenting on how exciting it was to see the “advanced” students in action. Little did she realize that over one third of the students had been from our special education department. 

I think about this as there is a push to end the Department of Education at the federal level. I find myself feeling frustrated at the lack of understanding of what that wonderful agency actually does. I might first say what it is not. Not once did I receive orders to teach in a particular way or to use specific tools to teach a concept. What I did get from them is funding for special projects with students who need more time and variety to learn. I saw my mathematics department suddenly qualifying to receive manipulatives, calculators, and computers that enhanced my lessons. I saw with my own eyes how vibrant and excited my special needs students were. The Department of Education accomplished that and so much more. 

It saddens me that people who have never taught children a day in their lives seem to think that they know what children need better than the teachers. They see the Department of Education as a waste of taxpayer funds and somehow believe that the agency is peddling woke propaganda and deciding what and how teachers will teach. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I hope that life does not become more difficult for our students with dyslexia, autism, dysgraphia, brain injuries, learning disabilities, anxieties, blindness, deafness, emotional illnesses, Down’s syndrome and so many other difficulties. The Department of Education has made learning more and more possible and much happier for so many young people. I would hate to see all of the progress go away based on misconceptions of what the agency does. The segregated rooms in the back of the property are no more. Our most needy children are being loved and taught to be productive members of our society. What could possibly be a more worthwhile investment?  

Life is like an ice cream cone. You have to lick it one day at a time. —-Charlie Brown

I have had a sometimes difficult life, but not one that has been impossible to bear. The trauma of my young father’s death when I was eight still haunts me, but my memories of him are beautiful. They have served me well as a guide to being the best version of myself most of the time. 

After Daddy died my mother rose to the occasion of being a single parent in spite of having to surmount financial challenges that might have broken the spirit of most people. She pushed through every difficultly seemingly performing little miracles with a smile on her face. If she worried, she never showed it to me and my brothers. Instead she taught us how to be grateful for having a sturdy roof over our heads, and food on the table. Much like my father she urged us to take full advantage of education and served as a role model by going to college to earn a degree and serving as a teacher at our elementary school. 

I remember my mama burning the midnight oil studying, writing papers and poring over the bills that she always found the means to pay. I had little idea back then how stressful her life must have been and how it was slowly but surely chipping away at her mental health. I would soon learn the extent of her stress around the time that Americans first landed on the moon when she seemed uncharacteristically sad and afraid. As her symptoms became ever more frightening I had to find help for her and embark on a decades long role of giving care for her whenever her bipolar disorder returned. It was difficult and sometimes horrifying but it also forced me to dig deeply inside myself to find strength that I never believed that I had. 

I adjusted just as I had when my father died and just as my mother had done as well. I was happily enjoying purchasing a home with my husband Mike and raising my two little girls when fate stepped in once again to rattle my optimism. First I picked up a case of hepatitis that knocked me off of my feet for over three months. Then Mike somehow came down with blastomycosis, a deadly fungal disease that attacks organs. While he underwent months of chemotherapy in the hospital I envisioned life without him in case the treatment did not take. Luckily he went into remission and we picked up our lives with optimism and gusto. 

My own education had been delayed by the medical issues of my mother and husband but I was soon back at college enjoying my courses so much more with the maturity that had redefined me. I was certain that I wanted to be a teacher and I threw myself into learning the skills that I would need with a passion. Ironically at the very moment when I graduated there was a glut of teachers in the public schools so I had to change course, a talent that I had been developing from the time that I was eight. I spent my first year in a small private school with delightful students who allowed me to practice being an educator with them. It turned out to be a relationship made in heaven. It was a safe place to make mistakes and start over again and again day by day until I got it right. 

By the following year I was a veteran and ready to work with underserved students with difficulties that made anything that I had ever experienced seem like only a tiny bump in the road. I learned so much about the potential of every single person and how to draw out the talents of young people whose lives were sometimes turned upside down and inside out. I knew that I had been working my way toward this for a very long time. 

My mother’s mental health would keep me busy while I became more and more in love with my career as an educator. I went back to the university once again to earn an advanced degree. I accepted more and more responsibilities while sending my own daughters through college. I became a grandmother and witnessed my husband having a heart attack and then later a minor stroke. Fortunately he survived both and kept going with the help of talented doctors. Life went on one day at a time just as Charlie Brown predicted. 

Now I am officially retired but still teaching students who are home-schooled. My mother died about a decade ago in a beautifully peaceful manner. My father-in-law lives with us now and I share caregiving of him with my husband. My grandchildren are in their twenties. Some have already graduated from college and others are either well on their way to earning a degree or at the beginning of college life. I have an extended family of cousins, classmates, neighbors, coworkers, and former students. I have bad knees and bones but I’m still quite able. I know full well that life is very much like an ice cream cone and so far I have licked it one day at a time.  

Words fail me in this moment. In most cases they flow out of me like a waterfall. Right now I can’t even define my feelings which jump from disgust to anger to deep sadness to unremitting determination. I have witnessed a debasement of my nation by a vengeful bully who is using his office to be a spiteful agent of hate. Donald J. Trump is revealing in real time how petty, ignorant and childish he is. He is demonstrating his hatred for the United States of America and he is using the tactics of a childish tyrant to destroy decades of hard work that began with our Founding Fathers in 1776.

February 28, 2025, is a day that will live in infamy. It is the moment when Trump showed the entire world what a horrible human being he actually is. He let us all know that his approach to life is that of a mobster who is willing to lie and cheat to get what he wants. Trump lured the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to the Oval Office with the promise of a financial deal that was always in reality about staging a public ridicule at a press conference. Zelensky was ambushed by Trump, Vice President J. D. Vance, Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, and the quietly complicit Secretary of State Marco Rubio. 

In a tirade unworthy of the President of the United States, Trump and gang pounded on Zelensky with allusions to card games and with taunts and lies. It was perhaps the most disgraceful breach of diplomacy and honor that has ever occurred in our nation. It befouled the dignity of the Oval Office and in only a few minutes sent the message to the entire world that the United States of America is no longer to be trusted.

I need not go into the details of the encounter. We all saw it and heard the sordid comments of Trump, Vance and Hegseth. We listened to their insults as Zelensky held his ground. It was a tirade from the so called leaders of our nation akin to rants from Adolf Hitler that we have watched on the History Channel. It’s crudity and implications have sent me and people the world over into a sense of disbelief that our nation could become so foul. 

I found myself wondering if the United States of America would even exist today if during the American revolution George Washington had been berated like Zelensky. After all, things were not looking so good for the patriots who were fighting the advanced British army. They had less funding for their efforts than the king’s men. They had less training for their soldiers. It seemed unbelievable that they had even had the temerity to stand up to the king. Only about a third of the people in the colonies were strongly in favor of the war. Some literally left for safer places. Others tried to live their lives as though the battles were not even happening. Things did not bode well for Washington and his forces but the revolution was fueled by the Declaration of Independence and a belief that the people of the thirteen colonies deserved to live under their own democracy, not bound by the vagaries of the king whose only use for them was to fill his coffers. 

I thought of Abraham Lincoln and his unwillingness to allow the United States to fall even when the Confederate army was winning battle after battle. I thought of his resolve that “the government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from this earth.” He saved this nation from extinction even when his cause seemed hopeless.

I wondered how we Americans would have reacted if Franklin Delano Roosevelt had told Winston Churchill to face the facts that Great Britain was not going to win the war against Hitler. How much shame would we have felt if FDR had suggested that Churchill surrender?

I thought of all of the people who have lost their lives in pursuit of democracy in our own country and I felt horrified that Trump chose to humiliate the one man who is standing tall in the fight for his nation’s independence. In my mind I was screaming for members of the Republican party and those who voted for Trump to finally realize the terrible mistake that they have made. The sound of crickets nearly broke me but the courage of Zelensky reminded me that our freedom has never been free. Great men like him have had to fight to keep our own republic intact over and over again. I felt ashamed that somehow we Americans have allowed Trump to infect our country with his pettiness and ignorance. I wanted someone in that room to rise up in defence of what they surely know is the right and just thing to do.

I am still in a state of shock. I have cried. I have felt betrayed not just by Trump but frankly by those that he fooled into voting for him. I now know that we have difficult days ahead but I will speak truth and do whatever I am called to do to protect the people of our nation. I will live with the hope that this moment has galvanized the American people to demand that Trump be finally held accountable for the many treasonous things that he has done. There is no excuse for his traitorous behavior nor for his henchmen who sit looking at their hands while he tears down all that we hold sacred. I will not rest until the damage that Trump has inflicted on our nation and its reputation in the world is undone. I will also hold firmly to my support of President Zelensky and Ukraine. I know a great man when I see one.

I refuse to fold, to look away or run away. Our democracy is injured but it is not dead. Things have fallen apart but the center will hold. The resistance is growing and we are living history. We have a chance to make a difference and that is what I choose to do.

I remember my mother-in-law lamenting that her calendar was regularly filling up with funerals for people that she knew. She noted that it was becoming rather depressing to realize that she had more friends and family who had already left this world than new acquaintances to replace them. She herself died when she was only a year older than I now am. She seemed so young and vital that losing her was shocking, especially coming just before Christmas. I still miss her along with all of the other departed souls who once made me laugh or think or just feel good. 

Death is as much part of the life experience as birth. We know it is inevitable for everyone but somehow the timing of it never feels right even if the person is very old. My grandfather died at the age of one hundred eight. He was very aware that his time to die might come at any moment once he turned ninety years old. He purchased a new suit to use in the event that he might pass. He often laughed that the clothing had become faded and threadbare in the eighteen years that ensued before he finally took his last breath. 

I had begun to take for granted that my grandfather would be around anytime that I wanted to see him. Our visits always left me feeling energized and calm. He had a way of speaking almost magical words of wisdom that went straight to my heart and soul. I was shocked when he drew his final breath. I was not ready for him to be gone even though I had reveled in his presence far longer than I had ever dared to believe was possible. 

There are people who seem to “get” us. They transcend superficialities in knowing exactly what we need from them. In an unspoken pact we feel as though we can let down our guard with them and just be ourselves even when we feel angry and grinchy. We love them and they love us. We somehow feel their presence even years after they have gone. They are so irreplaceable that even when we forge new relationships they are still in the center of our hearts. 

I don’t dwell on the people I have lost on most days. I get busy living life and seeming as though I may even have forgotten about them. Then from out of nowhere something will jog a precious memory that makes me smile or tugs at my heart with a sense of wonder. Somehow I see my loved ones more clearly after they are gone. I remember the goodness of them, easily forgetting times when they may have annoyed me. I am not building up a false picture of them in my mind, but rather getting to the essence of who they were and how they so positively impacted my life. 

I suppose that we all get so busy with the minutia of life that we quite often take the special people who are still with us for granted. We intend to tell them how much they mean to us but we have laundry to wash, bills to pay, tasks to perform that seem more demanding than stopping to make a phone call or write a note expressing our love. 

I often ask myself if my mother-in-law knew how much I enjoyed soaking in her knowledge and wisdom and encouragement over cups of tea. Did she understand how much I admired her and hung on her every word? Did my grandfather realize that he was a central source of security and comfort for me. Should I have told him that I often sought him out just to assuage my anxieties. He had such a calming effect on me and I never specifically thanked him for that. 

Life can feel listless and boring at times. We long for adventure, a change of pace from the mundane of day to day. Instead of using that time to tell people how much they impact us we pout over the slowness of routine. Then suddenly we get the news that a special person has died and the opportunity for sharing our feelings is gone. We can shout out how much we loved them with a tinge of regret that we did not utter those words sooner. 

Yes, I am pensive these days because with greater regularity people that I have known and loved are dying. Sometimes they experience long periods of pain and suffering before the end. I become afraid of seeing them in a reduced condition. I worry about what I should say, how I should act. How silly and even selfish of me it is to put off going to see them with excuses that I might be in the way if I make an effort to be with them. I need do little more that hug them, sit with them, speak to them of the happiness that they have given me. How difficult is that? Why am I so reticent and fearful?

None of us mean to ignore the very people who are most important to us. We just make reasonable excuses for our busy lives even when they are not really all that busy. We don’t use the conveniences that are available to us. We can sent a quick text, make a two minute call, send a card or letter, schedule a visit or make a plan to get together. Such should regularly be part of our routines. What can possibly be more important than telling someone how wonderful he or she has made our life?

I attended a private high school from 1962-1966. Back then it was common for students to be grouped according to their perceived intellectual abilities. Ironically I ended up in the top level class called “Honors” after my former teachers insisted that I not be grouped based on the entrance exam for the school. It seems that my score would have landed me in either the 1-1 or 1-2 ranking rather than Honors. The administrators decided to give me a trial opportunity to demonstrate my learning chops before moving me down to a grouping that they believed would be more appropriate for me. 

I ended up staying with the Honors group for all four years and graduated as the valedictorian. I admittedly received a fine classical education, but after becoming an educator myself I began to identify the numerous problems associated with such a strict system of classifying students in a very public way. For one thing, I had no opportunities to actually meet and interact with many of the students who would graduate in the same year as I did. They were literally cut off from me and those of us who were in the Honors classes unless we happened to play sports or join the drill team. 

It would be fifty years later before I got to know many of members of the Class of 1966 when we came together for a reunion. By that time my shyness had given way to an openness that had been missing when I was a student and had been reinforced by keeping me tightly associated with a small group of people day in and day out for four years. I would reach out to almost everyone on that evening and continue our conversations at future gatherings and on Facebook. What I found in the process was quite lovely.

I learned that there were people in my class who were much more in sync with the person that I was back then and the person that I am today. I connected with them almost intuitively and found soulmates whom I suspect I would have enjoyed as a teenager if I there had been opportunities to meet them rather than simply know of them and passing them in the hallways of the school. 

I have come to see that the distinctions between our intellectual abilities were always miniscule. They are highly intelligent and vibrant individuals who might have done as well in the Honors classes as I did if they had enjoyed the gift of the advocates who insisted on placing me there. All of which makes me question the reliability of the system that the powers that be used in very publicly assigning us to certain tracks of learning. 

My own experience as an educator has shown me again and again that when students choose to challenge themselves academically they generally rise to the occasion. I have grown to despise systems that create roadblocks for students based on single tests or opinions about them. One of my favorite experiences involved a student who had been relegated to special education status but worked side by side with his classmates in regular classes.

I had received notification from San Jacinto Junior College that they were offering a six week long daily summer camp for deserving students who were interested in science and mathematics. They requested that I inform my students about the program and provide them with the information they would need to vie for a place. 

Many teachers quietly gave the application packets to only their top students but I described the opportunity to all one hundred fifty of my pupils. I was disappointed that only a small number of the most advanced students showed interest in spending much of their summer in a college classroom. Then one of my special education students excitedly asked for the information he would need to apply. I gave them all the deadline date that they would need to follow so that I might send a packet of applications to the school in a timely manner.

Some of the students decided that the application was too complex since it even required an essay telling why they wanted to attend. Only a little more than half who had asked for the instructions turned in their paperwork. Among them was the special education student. 

When I took the time to read through their forms and essays I had a feeling that it would not be the young men and women who were making the best grades in my class who would be chosen. Instead it was the special education student whose information stood out like a twinkling star. It was apparent how badly he wanted to prove himself and as expected he won the coveted spot. 

Some of my fellow teachers were appalled that we would be sending the “inferior” student to represent our school. They pointed out that he had anger issues and might cause a ruckus or worse. They noted that his study skills were lacking and that he often missed deadlines or just ignored assignments. I nonetheless stood my ground and insisted that the young man had won fair and square. I told him immediately that he was the chosen finalist. 

He was beside himself with joy but he came to me the following school day to sadly admit that he had no transportation to the college. He said that his mother took a city bus to her job as a janitor in a hospital and he did not know how he would be able to get there. I took a deep breath and offered to be his driver even though I new it would change all of the plans I had made for my summer vacation. For six weeks I picked him up at six in the morning and brought him home at three. As each day and week went by I witnessed a miraculous transformation in him as we talked to and from the school. 

He told me that nobody knew his reputation at the college. They assumed that he was smart and so he acted smart and as he did so he began to believe that he was smart because he was able to keep up with all of the other students. It was a watershed moment for him that he knew would change the direction of his life and his destiny.

I have thought of this young man so many times over the years. He would be in his late forties by now. I lost track of him but he was already doing so much better after his summer experience. He got to meet with the group once a week from that time until he graduated from high school. He found confidence and talents that nobody ever knew he had, much like I did when I got a shot at being an Honors student.  

Ironically so many from the Class of 1966 whom I really did not know back in the day have proven to be as intellectually brilliant as those with whom I was grouped. In some cases these people are actually more brilliant and discerning than my Honors class friends. I wish I had known them sooner because they have enlivened my world with their knowledge and intellect. We are so alike and I love that I now have them in my sphere. I hope they know who they are and how much I have enjoyed knowing them. The whole idea of classifying people in any way is dangerously silly. Each of us has talents and goals that should not be hampered. We humans thrive when given the room to grow.