Susan Senator

I think that lawmakers should have to go through training, just like teachers do.  Teachers are required to have many courses in education strategies, child development, special needs; and then they also have to do internships, and learn on the job before they take charge of a classroom.  Lawmakers, on the other hand, are simply elected, and they serve based on whatever their experience or record may be.  When I was on our Board of Education (School Committee) a few years back, not one of us was an educator; we were laypersons elected for what we believed and had done in the community.  We were there as representatives of “the people” in town, and not as experts.  We had to meet with and listen to the experts’ recommendations (the superintendent, the assistant superintendents, department chairs, etc.) as well as to weight what we knew the parents and students felt (ideally) and make our decisions based on all of that.  A lot of responsibility and not a lot of expertise, but that is representative government.

What made a difference for me back then was whenever we were invited to take part in an activity of a particular group or issue. For example, we would read to a random classroom anywhere in the school system, on Dr. Seuss’ birthday; it was kind of a symbol of how reading is important.  The kids gathered around me; the teacher sitting off to the side, smiling.  Me, trying to make this children’s book come alive to them.  All in all, a small gesture, certainly one for the newspapers, and yet, not without its actual merit.  Just the half hour I spent in that first grade classroom at a nearby school taught me so much that I didn’t know about teaching.  It made it real to me.  It made me stop and think next time anything to do with “first grade” or “literacy” or “large classrooms” or “challenging children” came up.  However much more a School Committee member could attend events and meetings, made that much of a difference in our ability to represent because we had learned something firsthand, or at least, first fingertip.

Training does not have to involve actually going somewhere like I did.  I am reading Precious, based on the novel Push, by Sapphire, and getting a tiny but vivid training in what it’s like to live around crack addicts, survive child abuse, navigate the Welfare system, become homeless.  I thought I knew something about this just by reading newspapers but the thing is, reading Precious’ story is making me feel what it is like, just a small painful slice.  I caught myself remembering some quick, summary judgment I had made about how “of course, a victim of rape should get an abortion,” and then thought about how Precious feels about baby Abdul, her child and her brother(!), and how she fights to keep him with her.  This is the first time I understood how that could be so.  I also realized how much our social programs helped save her life.  So easy to talk about Waste and Big Government in the same breath, but do we ever stop to think about the millions who are actually helped by Big Government?  Precious was a victim, whose life would have remained shit in a swamp if she had not been able to collect Welfare, go to an Alternative Public School, and live at a halfway house.  All funded by the US Government.  That right there is a modern-day miracle of how the system works. And your tax dollars are going towards repairing the world.

So I got to thinking about how legislators have to vote on item after item with little knowledge about it, and certainly without any training around it.  They come to power with their beliefs already intact.  Often based on ignorance, or worse, on hatred.  But imagine if legislators were made to teach a class for twenty minutes, or work in an adult residence for a little while, or sit behind a Welfare desk.  What if they had to meet with the parties that would be affected by their vote?  Cutting the education budget?  Before you do, come in and teach in that overcrowded classroom, just for twenty minutes.  Against healthcare for all?  Live with an autism family whose insurance refuses autism therapy coverage and who cannot afford any interventions and whose child is in one of those overcrowded classrooms.  Against environmental protection?  Spend a little time in a country where there are no EPA controls and have fun breathing.

The legislator’s life would become much fuller; he’d have less time for meetings with wealthy and powerful lobbyists.  His schedule would be much more finely drawn.  His brain would be stretched and tired; his heart would be soft and worn.  And his votes would be infinitely more intelligent and compassionate.