I had incredible teachers. As I look at my life today, the things I value most about myself — my imagination, my love of acting, my passion for writing, my love of learning, my curiosity — all come from how I was parented and taught.

By now, anyone who pays attention to such things knows that Matt Damon, at the request of his mother, a professor and child development specialist, made a speech in favor of teachers at the Save Our Schools rally, July 31, 2011. When Damon was asked by a journalist from the libertarian Reason TV site if tenure served to thwart teachers’ motivation to do a good, job, he pointed out to her that a teacher is motivated, not by the fear of losing his or her job, but by the desire to teach.

Name of the game seems to be ‘sock it to the working people and protect the rich even more.'

From the time I left home to the time her mind became too clouded with Alzheimer’s disease to do so, my mother wrote to me once or twice a week, newsy letters about family, friends, and neighbors. We kept up a long, steady correspondence during the years before e-mail ended the practice of letter writing.

My mother did not have a college education, but she was intelligent, artistic, and adept at math. At one point she went to business college, taking enough classes to allow her to work as a bookkeeper at the Empire District Electric Company. Then, after all us kids grew up and left home, she began working as a tax preparer.

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I personally know the author and can completely and confidently vouch for the professionalism and dependability of this publication and the firm that produces it.

The United States is ranked 35th in Math and 29th in Science. Other nations such as China, Finland, Australia, and Japan outrank us. Think about it, what are the things we love in this society? Our technologies - tech gadgets, televisions, high performing cars, digital communication, digital music, green technologies, convenience foods, all the conveniences of life. Have you ever stop to think about the minds that go into making these technologies? These industries are beyond lucrative. Those who work in those industries, whether on the creative side, innovation and improvement side, manufacturing and distribution side, or marketing and selling side - individuals who work in these industries earn good livings. Our society is moving ever-more rapidly to innovation. So if you wanted to be on board this very fast moving train, you would have to be ready for it.

These remarks were delivered at the Distinguished Alumni Award Ceremony in San Marcos, Texas, October 1, 2010.

I am grateful to the selection committee at the San Marcos Education Foundation for this recognition tonight. And I thank those who moved my nomination by Virginia Witte forward after her death last summer.

Success and achievement in life is certainly related to performance. If you show up, work with energy and passionate purpose, you have a good chance to make something of yourself in the world.

But what I want to talk about tonight is that accomplishment is also about being lucky. It’s about having good fortune in the relationships and circumstances that shape your life. I have been very lucky...

I truly want this quote to not be true. I want to believe that our poor education system is not the fault of those of us who work diligently with our children every day, but over the last week or two, I am beginning to wonder.

Waiting for Superman has stirred up all kinds of conversations around our educational system. The film has shown people that not all families and children have the same opportunities. It talks about the desperation of parents as they hope and pray that their child is chosen to attend a school that can offer their child a quality education. It speaks of and shows good classrooms and teachers, but it also recognizes that there are teachers and school systems who are failing our kids. The film talks a lot about charter schools that have done well, like KIPP Academy and Harlem Success Prep... schools that recognized children were failing and faltering and did something huge and immediate.

Yet, after the film was released... after Oprah did her segment.. .and after NBC has created the conversation about Education Nation, Twitter blew up each time with teachers screaming, "We're under attack!"

On Thursday, October 7, the Central Dallas Ministries public policy department will co-sponsor a showing of the Waiting for Superman documentary. Though we made the decision before all of the controversy, there is now a firestorm of strong opinions thrusting themselves into the media on both sides. It seems there really are no lukewarm voices.

I'll publicly admit that I was one of the major advocates pushing our public policy committee to show the film ... and I am still strongly in favor of showing the film. I watched the Oprah segment and I must say, I was very impressed. No, she didn't have teachers on her panel ... but she also didn't have parents. What she did have was socially conscious voices who are concerned about our children. See the film below...

It's called the Kalamazoo Promise and it is funded entirely and in perpetuity by private, anonymous donors. Their goal - to send every school-aged child attending Kalamazoo Public Schools to community college, college or a university in the state of Michigan.

Many observers called it 'groundbreaking', 'a bold new experiment', and 'a model for America'. I call it a 'no-brainier'.

Ahhh...finally a little down time this week. The summer program is over and we are ramping up for our After-School programs. No light task, but it does allow for a slight reprieve.

To allow me to procrastinate the planning I need to do for the Education Department training week and ensure I'll be working under a tight deadline for no reason, I decided to change offices. It's a bigger office with more windows and more wall space. I can get all of the papers off of the floor and organize a little better.

As with all moving jobs, it allowed me to sift through stuff, throwing away the pointless, old stuff and discovering treasures I had forgotten about long ago. Some of the treasures were photos I'd enlarged or printed on regular paper and stashed away until I could find frames or reasons to use them. Now is that time.

After a few days of cleaning, sifting, and moving furniture, I began to hang photos. I found some frames that had been donated... but others were hung simply with "tacky" directly on the wall. Once I completed the move and had all of the photos hung, I looked around and realized the framing definitely gave it a little "umph," but it wasn't the frames that I was going for when I printed the pictures. It's the meaning behind each one.

Those of us who take jobs as teachers, educators, and social workers know what we're getting into when we sign up for the degree and the job. We sign on to higher salaries than people without an education, but lower than most degreed people make. But, for the most part, making the big bucks is not our intent.

In fact, the longer I'm in education, the more my job becomes a day-by-day battle to ensure children are receiving the best education possible with the resources we are given and the systems we are working against.