My kids have gotten a crash course in civics the last few weeks. They designed and made their own protest signs. This involved David triumphantly emerging from the garden with sticks to carry the signs. They walked the picket line, got passing cars to honk for teachers, and went downtown to a march rally. Baby's first rally. My parents point out that my first rally was when I was five or something and lay down in the street with my dad to stop nuclear weapons going through Seattle.

The rally for teachers was closer to home and relevant to their lives. They don't understand all the issues, actually neither do I, but the sign that said "If You Don't Respect My Teachers, You Don't Respect Me" spoke to them. They got that this was about respecting kids. Mr. Shy David managed to photobomb every camera person there. He was on the 5 o'clock news. Actually, we all were.

The teachers deliberately took on issues of social justice as well as pay (which is also a social justice issue) to get support from the community. I'm hoping this movement continues, even though the strike is thank goodness over, because our state has one of the lowest rates of teacher pay, we rank 40th in the nation for student spending, class size is 45th in the nation, and even though funding education is called a "paramount duty" in our constitution, we don't. The state is in contempt of the Washington courts over this issue. I think a bus ride to Olympia is in our future.