Dat First Day – David

I am so glad that my boss, Emile, responded to my emails about our first meeting this morning, because we were confused about whether I had to be in Ann Arbor this Tuesday morning for a seminar from the grant funders with love, so I didn’t even know if Emile would be ready to let me in this morning! (Haha say Emailing Emile 5 times fast. I triple dog dare you.) Arriving at work this morning, it was a little intimidating that the park lot was surrounded by razor-wire garrison fencing, but once Emile let me in, I was totally impressed. I am working at a DPS (Detroit Public Schools) facility on Farnsworth, which was once a warehouse, but has been completely renovated on the inside to let in tons of natural light. It also has a trapezoidal office façade theme, and Emile’s office suite had tons of pictures made by his son and possibly plausibly from Detroit schoolchildren… kids are the light of the world, you feel?! But Emile, even though he works in the Energy affairs, was extremely knowledgeable about social justice issues within schools, which he could just sniff out was my jam… so intriguing. After our lunch break, he left me with some advice he was told by the Head of the Danish Education system, which is outpacing the world in PISA test performance and UNICEF Child Hospitality ratings: he told him after a meeting of Michigan Education Leaders: “I don’t think they [American Education Leaders at the meeting] understood what I was trying to impart: that nearly no one in Denmark goes to private schools. Almost all kids are in the public schools, and all communities are vested in the effort.” Beware privatization.
Peace.