Veterans Day – A Teachable Moment

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Rebecca Sipos

by Joseph W. Mazzola President & CEO

I had the great fortune of being raised by a loving family. They instilled in me certain values that shaped me into the person I am today. None of the adults in my family had much of a formal education though. My grandfather, for example, came to our country at the age of 10 with about a fifth grade education. He was a water boy on the railroad and later became a shoemaker.

My father never graduated from high school either. He fixed wrecked cars for a living and eventually owned his own shop–“Mazzola’s Body Shop.” It never had running water or central heat. During the winter, he burned coal in a pot-belly stove to warm the place up. I loved hanging out at his shop, and I learned a lot, too. Most people don’t know it, but I’ve painted cars, changed engines, installed transmissions, and I still service my own vehicles. In fact, I’m doing a brake job on my son’s car this weekend.

Oh. I forgot to mention why my dad never graduated from high school. He quit at the start of his senior year to go fight in World War II with his older brothers. You see, service to the nation was just one of the values stressed in our family. Since that was the case, it was an easy decision for me to enlist in the Air Force when I got older, even though it was very unpopular at the time.

Although I planned on doing my hitch and then moving on, I ended up spending more than 25 years in uniform. I did so because I loved being part of something meaningful, I loved working with honorable men and women, and I loved the fact that my organization stressed many of the same values I learned at home: Integrity, Service and Excellence.

Every year in November we celebrate Veterans Day. This year, encourage your students to reach out to veterans in your community. Besides having them thank the vets for their service, have them ask about the core values the vets lived by and how those values impacted their personal character. And, after Veterans Day, have the students share what they learned. I think you’ll find this can be a powerful character-building experience…and that’s what all good character educators look for!

Thanks for all you do to develop young men and women of good character for our world.

Save our Schools March in Washington

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Rebecca Sipos

Yesterday more than 5,000 teachers and supporters gathered on the Ellipse for the Save Our Schools rally and march to the White House. I decided to attend along with my son, his wife and her parents, who came down from New York City to show support. Quite frankly, I thought there’d be an even bigger crowd, but I’m sure the nearly 100-degree heat deterred many. Nevertheless, it was an enthusiastic group, and we heard some excellent speeches.

I was struck by Linda Darling Hammond’s statistics–we have 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of its prison inmates. She compared how little we spend per pupil for education t Continue reading →

Creating “a culture of integrity” in Atlanta Public Schools

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Rebecca Sipos

It’s comforting to see something good come out of something bad. There’s not much more scorn that can be heaped upon the Atlanta Public Schools after the cheating debacle that surfaced this week in the news, shedding light on a scandal involving educators, administrators, standardized test scores, shocking lapses in morals, and examples set for our nations’ students that will take years of effort to undo. But yesterday’s revelations are a huge step in the right direction.

According to Interim Superintendent Erroll B. Davis Jr., Atlanta Public Schools will work toward achieving “a culture of integrity” as well as a “more open and transparent culture” among its schools, administrators, and teachers. Too little, too late? Certainly not. It’s a monumental step in the right direction, and CEP would like to offer information and resources Continue reading →