#RedforEd Takes on Double Meaning

Published: Fri, 11/29/19

Author Mary Cronk Farrell

Stories to Inform & Inspire

November 29, 2019

Hello ,

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I'm filled with gratitude for your support throughout the year. Your belief in me and my work carries me over the rough patches. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

A bit of a change this week, instead of an heroine from history, I bring you the story of a present-day teachers fighting for their students. And their lives.

#RedforEd

Takes on Double Meaning

in Philippines.

Hard to miss the dissension in schools across the country the last two years. The wave of demonstrations, protest walkouts and labor strikes by teachers have hit urban districts like Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago, as well as more rural states like West Virginia and Kentucky.

Teachers have won some and lost some, but to my knowledge these union actions have remained peaceful.

Not so, in the Philippines, where one teacher, a member of Alliance of Concerned Teachers has been hospitalized with six bullet wounds. Masked men entered her classroom and shot Zhaydee Cabañelez in front of her students.

Photo Zhaydee Cabañelez in the hospital, courtesy of Valencia City Police Office Chief Colonel Surki Sereñas

Zhaydee was struck in the chest and legs. Her husband Ramil Cabañelez, also teaching in the classroom, managed to escape without injury.

Zhaydee has been held incommunicado in her hospital room, guarded by police since the attack. According to parents at the school, police never came to investigate the shooting and students gathered the bullet shells at the scene.

The violent assault did not come out of the blue. President Rodrigo Duterte has taken a hard line against unions, and ACT teachers have been profiled as terrorists by the Philippine National Police. Since his election in 2016, Duterte has been accused of human rights abuses, but continued to consolidate his authoritarian regime in the Philippines.

Raymond Basilio, ACT General Secretary, has received multiple death threats since this year. The teacher wounded by gunfire October 15th, had been recognized in 2016 by the Department of Education Outstanding Teacher Award.

Members of ACT have organized seeking pay raises for teacher.

The global union movement is organizing a day of action in solidarity with teacher in the Philippines on December 10th, International Human Rights Day.

You can show your support for teachers in the Philippines here...

On a Lighter Note

I loved your stories of personal experience following last week's article on women arrested for wearing pants.

With thanks to Norm:

My mother told me the story of a woman who entered a fancy restaurant in slacks and a long matching blouse. The restaurant refused her service because she wasn’t wearing a dress. She retired to the ladies room, stuffed her slacks into her handbag, and walked into the dining room wearing the shortest mini-dress one could imagine and wearing the biggest smile on her face. She was seated because by then she was wearing a dress.

With thanks to Bob:

In 1970, I taught high school in Morton, WA It was a policy of the school that none of the women students could wear pants. This was in the era of the
mini-skirt. This is a rainy, windy, snowy area. At first the young women tried wearing pants to school and then changing at school. But the principal then began harassing the women on the school buses, and then even those who
walked to school. One teacher at least was severely reprimanded for answering the students who asked him what to do. He just laughed and said, well if you all wore pants, what could they do?

Until next week...

Read a great book? Have a burning question? Let me know. If you know someone who might enjoy my newsletter or books, please forward this e-mail. I will never spam you or sell your email address, you can unsubscribe anytime at the link below.

To find out more about my books, how I help students, teachers, librarians and writers visit my website at www.MaryCronkFarrell.com.

Contact me at MaryCronkFarrell@gmail.com. Click here to subscribe to this newsletter.