It’s Memorial Day, when we honor fallen soldiers and eat barbecue. But we educators are never quite off duty, at least in our heads. So let’s celebrate teachers who ARE speaking up.

First, harking back to Teacher Appreciation week, Janet Ilko, on the National Writing Project iAnthology, honored our Teachers Speak Up effort (Many thanks, Janet!) and then invited teachers to tell stories about what inspires them in their work. You might need to create an account with NWP to read these (if you don’t already have one), but they’re fun and moving, so it’s worth the trouble. And you’ll learn from Kevin Hodgson about a website for creating your own four-panel cartoons.

Second, a group of 11 teachers in the VIVA NEA Writing Collaborative created a report, “Sensible Solutions for Safer Schools,” and presented it in Washington the the NEA and the Dept. of Education. If enough of us were doing that, government and legislators might begin to listen.