I’m sixty-two years old folks. I collect Social Security. I don’t need to be on the Duluth School Board. I’m not needed by parents who can fill in all the new holes in their children’s education that the Red Plan has opened up.
The Red Plan was not built to screw up the Duluth Schools. Its advocates had the best interest of our schools and children at heart. They goofed although that is a pretty kind way of describing the results.
In recent posts I’ve suggested a lot of subjects that deserve a post of their own. I wish I could add a few extra hours into my schedule to fit them in but many of them will simply evaporate even while their substance remains fully embedded in my head.
I’ve wanted to write a book about education and my Odyssey figuring out what I make of it since I got cashiered twenty years ago for being an incompetent teacher. Given a few more years I think I would have proven to be a superlative teacher. Instead, the year my Dad died of cancer I had to tell him that I’d lost my third teaching position and listen to him tell me “Harry, Sometimes I think you have a will to fail.” Those were pretty sobering words for a dying Father to tell his eldest son, one he’d bragged about to relatives since I was weaned from my Mother’s breast milk.
If right now you are asking yourself. “Holy Cow! Does this guy think he’s some kind of philosopher?” I think the honest answer is “yes, I do.”
I’ve run for office 15 times and been elected twice. I love politics and I hate it. I hate it because so often our baser selves sabotage it and prevent it from making our world a better place. I refuse to completely surrender to this insanity. I’ll just give you one small example of how I approach politics. Twenty years ago I ran against Representative Mike Jaros twice for his seat in the Minnesota State Legislature. He was a DFLer I was a Republican. Today Mike Jaros is one of my most vigorous supporters and defenders.
I’m having a helluva time trying to figure out how to build my campaign website: www.weltyforschoolboard.com. It will take me weeks. I’ve decided that other than this blog I’d prefer to spend my time uploading pictures of my snow sculptures and talking about my political and school board history. It should be more entertaining and probably a lot more educational than the dumb things expected of a winning candidate for public office. Why will I forego the serious work of campaigning when I think so much is at risk for the Duluth Public Schools? Read the first three sentences of this post again.
The beginning of my snow history is in the preceding post.
