Inauguration Day

This morning Luke was really ticked off at the "new president." It was pretty funny. The " new president" was on every channel and he couldn't watch his favorite show, Curious George! He couldn't even watch his second favorite show, Dragon Tales! What was going on??? Who is this guy, who does he think he is hogging all the stations??!

When Barack Obama won the election, the next day my dad called me. He told me he woke up that morning thinking of his two grandsons and what a mixed race, African American president would mean to them in their lives. I hadn't been thinking about that at all. I guess I was more focused on the actual politics than the race issue and what that might mean to young African Americans. The last few days I have watched many specials interviewing young African American's and it's interesting to me. It is a big deal, a really big deal. Oprah is really excited about it. As a teacher I read and heard a lot about how you change and motivate teenagers. One successful way is with role models that they identify with. One of my favorite teacher movies is "Stand and Deliver." How did Jaime Escalante change the math program at Garfield High School in East LA? He taught Calculus and helped kids pass the AP test. Every year more and more passed and went on to college because they saw others just like them doing it. So no pressure Mr. Obama not only do you need to fix American politics and our sad economy, you better be a good role model to my boys and millions of others.

My boys are little right now, but they'll be bigger soon enough and I am glad they will live in a world where no matter your race you can be President of the United States. Yesterday as we honored Martin Luther King Jr. I had to think he's pretty happy about our "new president" too.