The Buenos Aires Accord

Two years ago I left the harvard school of education with a whole crop of teachers whose intended destination was towards america's urban schools. The program was very idealistic in this notion. Infact they were too much so in some respects. Students were leaving taking their degrees away from the urban schools out to rich suburban public schools just days after graduation. Infact some even went to teach in some of the expensive boarding schools where the sons and daughters of presidents and senators go to school. Even my friends and I realize that our experiences in the urban schools of america will be temporary but with the goal of making larger structural changes in the education system. Those who do leave early will leave themselves open to insults, chastisement, and the being the embodiment of everything that is wrong with america, and the world.

Preemptively along these lines I present the Buenos Aires Accord. In this arrangement Susan Kang and Carl Oliver, both graduates of the HGSE TEP program will wager to see who will teach full or part time in a mutually acceptable urban school the longest. The loser, the one who leaves teaching first, will have to purchase the winner the airfare and hotel for a trip for two to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Once one concedes that they are finished teaching said person will have one year from the day that the winner continues teaching. If the decision is made over a summer vacation the year begins on the september afterwards.

There are two stipulations to this as follows:

a) If Carl winds up going to the hospital for some kind of mental illness and is removed from his position because of the time off he will have to substitute teach as soon as medically possible and begin teaching again the next year, even if he needs another job.

b) If Susan gets pregnant she will have until the end of her maternity leave to return teaching.