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Our Rotary meeting started with Past President Tom Loo quoting from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s acceptance speech when Dr. King was awarded The Nobel Peace Prize. He reminded us of the struggle of racial inequality in America at that time.
Past President Tom Larmore continued to create a theme for the day as he led us in the special song of the day: “How Beautiful Upon the Mountain”, by Tom Paxton. President Tom explained the first verse of the song was taken from the Hebrew Scriptures (Isaiah 52:7). He also explained that the song reflected the struggle and hopes of the Central High Nine as nine African American Students intergraded Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957.
Dr. Michael Matthews solidified our theme by sharing that he was born in Arkansas just a few years after the Central High Nine intergraded the school.
Dr. Matthews shared from his four decades of experience as a public-school teacher and administrator the many challenges facing the Public School System in and around Southern California. He says he has great faith in our youth. He says he has personally observed and interacted whit thousands of students, including his own children and how they get along with their peers. He feels that Brown vs. Board of Education, Title IX and Special Education laws have been major forces in improving equality in American education. He called these
initiatives a Game Changer in education.
Other influencers in American education he discussed included New Math which was a product of the space age. In the 80’s Cultural Literacy became the call to get back to basics, and in 2002 the No Child Left Behind initiative became an influencer. Societal factors had an impact on school ratings. The poverty rates in various communities caused the lower income communities to lose funding for education. Common Core was fuzzy to students and educators with parents complaining about it. Math was being left out of education.
The COVID world pandemic introduced a new wave of anger among parents, teachers, and students. Now the Critical Race Theory (shaming students) is causing the big debate and bringing politics in position to dominate education.
Dr. Matthews says it’s important to remember that when those changes started having an impact on equality of opportunity in America, then, like now, there was serious backlash. This has never been about everyone being equal – this is about everyone having true equality of opportunity for an excellent education. Our efforts have continued. When I first started teaching in the mid-1980s, we were talking about how to embrace all cultures through multicultural education. And we’ve come a long way since then.
Dr. Michael Matthews delivered an important and thought-provoking message demonstrated by the serious nature of the questions following his presentation at our meeting. ![]() We have had several requests for Dr. Matthews blog link. If you decide to sign-up for free, he will send the new ones to your email. Dr. Matthews blog.
Kinan Aljamal joined our club on June 18 th, 2021 and received his permanent membership badge at this meeting. Robyn Dolgin, a new member of our club, received her temporary badge.. Soha MakhDouf Gid, a Rotarian from Dubai visited our club at this meeting. Visiting Rotarian, Galia Qissi, made her second visit to our club this month and she also joined us for a day of service at the Westside Food Bank earlier this month. Special thanks to our members who did a really good job of inviting visitors this week, the house was full!
COMMUNITY & YOUTH GRANTS AWARDED:
Susan Annett presented Westside Coalition a Grant of $1450.00.
Past President, Mitchell Kraus presented Team Santa Monica a Grant of $2600.00.
In the last two months the Community & Youth Committee has awarded a total of $15,135.00 in Grants with more to be presented.
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