When is it Time to Give Up?

One of my favorite Kenny Rogers’ songs is The Gambler. The chorus echos true, “You got to know when to hold them … know when to fold them … know when to walk away … know when to run …” The other day, I met a friend for coffee and as we sipped our brew, we mused over the long years of organizing, focusing on education. I fought for reform when I was student, when my children were students and now when my grandchildren are students. There was great emphasis in our conversation on “how long” I have been pushing for education reform. The emphasis was not flattering; almost an “in your face” kind of remark that kept cropping up in our conversation. Kenny Rogers’ song kept milling around the rear corners of my mind.

It was 1978, and my children sat around the dinning room table, supposedly doing their homework. As I went about preparing the evening meal, from time to time, I could hear some laughter and glib remarks about space travel. The noise grew and I inquired as to what was so funny. I picked up the text book that they were doing their homework from and it was a paragraph on space exploration that exclaimed “one day we will have man on the moon,” and how one day we will have space ships exploring the new frontier. Obviously, their text books were out of date, since the Russians had successfully launched a space vehicle, Sputnik, in 1957 — 21 years earlier.

Other red flags began to appear as I noticed a history paper marked with an “A” for content. It was bad enough that the work my children were doing they had done two years prior in New York, but marking a paper based on”effort” and/or “content” was appalling to me.

My battle for above-average education for my children in Connecticut began.

I found other like-minded parents and we set to work organizing for a better system. The issues we faced were social promotion, outdated textbooks, lack of accountability on all sides, lack of challenge and belief in students, frustrated teachers attempting to teach in oversized classrooms with a lack of the proper equipment and tools.

We fought hard, lobbied our elected officials, monitored the budget process, testified at the state legislature and more. We won some of our major battles, compromised on some and lost a some.

All this and more ran through my mind as my friend kept harping on the past, saying nothing changed or maybe implying that we changed nothing. All this while I sipped my cafe mocha with soy no whip, with visions of Kenny Rogers singing to me — did you know when to fold them … when to hold them … when to walk away or run? My friend seemed to keep at this trend of, “so … its been 40 years … what have you done?… the same issues exist … nothing has changed …” I wondered was I being vetted for something — something that I had not even been given a choice to know for what? Was I solely responsible for the education problems that continue to exist after 40 years?

Nevertheless, the question is a good one; one we should all ask ourselves when determining to right unspeakable wrongs.

When do you stop? When do you fold your deck, pack it up and walk away? When you win and leave in place the checks and balances that ensure the unspeakable wrongs have no place to re-appear.