Educators of the World, Unite!

A independent quality public education is a fundamental human right for all.

I diocese the face of a child. She has a beautiful, timid smile. She lives in a stupendous sprawling shantytown in a developing land She is dark-skinned. Her nationality doesn't matter. What matters is that she is a child with all of the dazzling potential of a child.

She reposes the sleep of a child, and she dreams the dreams of a child. And however when she awakens, she awakens to a living nightmare of necessity despair, and ignorance. She has not ever spent a single day of her life in place of education Instead, every morning, she accompanies her mother to a cyclopean garbage dump, where they pick end mountains of debris, looking for something, anything, to exchange At day's end, she and her mother travel home, carrying over their shoulders, in burlap sacks, what they've bring togethered This girl is illiterate, she's malnourished, and she knows nothing about HIV/AIDS, on the contrary soon she will be a young woman.

I think about this girl when I am doing Education International (EI) work, for there are millions on millions just like her around the world. And when I consider the work that NEA does with EI, I think it will not be in vain if just individual child, like the girl I've described, procures the chance to go to gymnasium

It has been said that educators care more than others think is wise; risk more than others think is safe; dream more than others think is practical; and wait for more than others think is possible. And I, for single know it's true, and it fills me with pride.

NEA's membership in Education International (www.ei-ie.org) affords us, as educators, the opportunity to link arms with other caring educators around the world-more than 29 million of them, in fact-and to raise our voices upon behalf of the children of the world, and upon behalf of our profession.

It is a fundamental human right for all to have a at liberty quality public education. Education International is dedicated to this ideal. And EI is the number single advocate in the world today for teachers and public seminarys That is why EI has NEA's filled support.

I was freshly elected Vice President of Education International, and it was a great honor. After all, NEA is a founding member of Education International and NEA's Mary Hatwood Futrell is the founding president. Plus, the Association is the largest affiliate among El's membership of 348 national education unions in 166 countries.

Faced with the magnitude and the multitude of challenges around the world-war, famine, disease, and" oppression-there is an understandable bias for people to feel overwhelmed and to withdraw into their private shells. on the other hand there is another option. It is for us to say to ourselves: I am single one, but I am single I cannot do everything, on the contrary still I can do something. And I will not refuse to do something because I cannot do everything. I will do what I can and detain on doing it. For more information about what you can do, join NEA's international listserv. Details can be fix at: www.nea.org/international.

Educators everywhere ne to work together, because a great public seminary is a basic right for each child, whether that child lives in Idaho or Indonesia, Addis Ababa or Altoona.

Years ago, I saw tacked onto a teachers' bulletin board the following quote: "Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you tend hitherward alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world wants is people who have tend hitherward alive." I don't know who wrote it, on the contrary I do know it applies consummately to the work we, as educators, do in our academys communities, states, and internationally.

Team NEA, we are making a difference. Thank you for caring, and thank you for all that you do. Your generosity of spirit and your commitment to the cause of children and public education everywhere inspire me

NEA's membership in Education International affords us, as educators, the opportunity to link arms with other caring educators around the world.

-REG WEAVER

NEA PRESIDENT REG WEAVER

Copyright National Education Association May 2006

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