Great expectations

January 20th was a special day for me as it was for many. At 5:00 am, my waking hour, I sat at my dinner table overlooking the snow covered backyard and in that dark room, and watched my thoughts go by.

In just a few hours, we would witness something that would in a small way begin to right the wrongs of many bleak years.

Barack Hussein Obama would be inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States of America. Here,, I must say that I am not enamoured by the image of a country and since my early teens have not lost my heart to media inflated heroes. Therefore mine was merely the observation of just another human being on this planet who by a quirk of fate shared the same time zone as this event.

We talked about it at school with my small group of grade 7 and 8 students who are my teachers in many many ways. I asked them this question:

• Why should it matter to me/ to us that Barack Obama is taking oath of office today?

In their typical adolescent honesty, their responses were interesting:

• The US is Canada's largest trading partner and it impacts us


• That is an economic response as it will show us if the months ahead will show an increase in trade or not.


• It will show us whether there will be real change and what it means for people in the streets

And then a quiet voice spoke up: It means more than that. For many years, people who have been discriminated against have not had a voice. This is proof that all voices can be heard when people want change. Remember when we talked about the poem " Oppression" by Langston Hughes?"

I stood there, unfazed. The brilliance of my students does not surprise me. It merely validates what I have always knows:

When people feel safe, they speak up

When they are celebrated, they speak up.

When their prescence at a gathering is valued, they speak up.

After 4 years of working with this age group and 2 years with this class, I expect great things from them, and they surpass my expectations every time.

These are my change agents, they prevent me from feeling angry at the ignorance of many. They help me see the greater good and collective wisdom of kindred spirits, after all that is what had moved the world forward, isn't it?