Near the end of her speech, Palm Springs City Councilmember and former Mayor Lisa Middleton quoted Anglo-Irish political thinker Edmund Burke, as a comment on the president. “Rudeness is a weak man’s imitation of strength.”
Middleton, a guest speaker at the CFT convention, came to talk about the challenges ahead – which are significant under the current Trump administration. Middleton knows a thing or two about challenges.
“I am transgender. They’re not that many of us, but we exist,” she said. “For those of us who are transgender, our most intimate personal identity has been politicized. I don’t know when the political fever on this issue is going to break, but I do know that politicalization helps no one. While today we are hearing from the loudest and the least informed, I believe that most in our country care about individual freedom and parental responsibility and freedom. I believe that most in time will come to trust families and their doctors more than they trust politicians.”
Middleton started her talk by thanking CFT members for standing up for students.
“You do this every single day, without fear and without favor for all of us, rich, poor and all those in between, and you are not rewarded with stock options. You don’t get any bonuses, and there are very rarely any fancy parties. But what you are always entitled to and must always have are these absolutes: a fair wage, a reliable pension, health care for your family, and most importantly, our respect.”
Middleton emphasized her commitment to public education, telling the delegates about a political campaign where she got most of the endorsements she went after, but one Southern California newspaper chain declined even after praising her as an independent thinking moderate on many issues. Why?
“They also concluded I was far too closely aligned with unions, teachers, and teachers’ unions,” she said to applause. “Guilty as charged and damn proud of it.”
She told the crowd about Canadian philosopher John Rolston Saul, one of Middleton’s favorite writers, who described what happened in the 1830s and 1840s as Canadian prairies were first being inhabited by poor farmers, the majority of whom couldn’t read.
“They came together in place after place and almost immediately built public schools,” she said. “They wanted their children to not only succeed, but to be fully participating citizens.”
Her children are both educators, Middleton said, and she told the crowd what her kids say matters in public school — that everyone has a right to a free education in a safe place, schools are a critical resource and meeting ground for communities, and they should have high-quality instruction that allows students to think critically.
“We hear so much today of charges that educators are trying to indoctrinate students, trying to tell kids what to think,” she said. “Well, no, you don’t. That’s a lie. The job of public education is to help students learn how to think for themselves.”
A grandmother of three (she put her grandchildren’s picture on the screen and acknowledged their adorableness), Middleton said education is for the next generation, not the last one.
“We owe it to our kids to give them the public education that is going to make a difference in their lives,” she said. “It is absolutely irresponsible to be focused on our past instead of their future.”
Middletown closed her speech with another quote, again from Saul, offered as a way to deal with the bully in the White House.
“We are reminded that the urgency which seems to come with so-called absolute truths and ideology is really just bullying,” she read. “And as with all bullying, if you refuse to panic, if you decline to respond quickly, it deflates and slinks away.”