Interview with Rita Tenorio, March 29, 2013

[title slide]

INTERVIEWER: So, can you tell me your name?

TENORIO: Rita Tenorio.

INTERVIEWER: And when were you born?

TENORIO: June 10, 1951.

INTERVIEWER: Where are you from?

TENORIO: I was born in Milwaukee, and have lived in southeastern Wisconsin all my life.

INTERVIEWER: How do you identify yourself?

TENORIO: Well, I come from a mixed background. My mother is of German descent but my father is first-generation Mexican. He was born in Gary and moved to Wisconsin, so I consider myself biracial and bicultural, and it's been the way 00:01:00I've grown up.

INTERVIEWER: So what parts of those different identities do you find in your own identity?

TENORIO: Well, you know, it's really interesting because when I was younger I really didn't know much about my Mexican heritage at all. I grew up in a community with my mother and with my mother's family more than my dad's. Going to college and then beyond was when I really started to dwell into that whole side of the family, and improving my Spanish. My dad never spoke Spanish at home, and I don't think he spoke much Spanish growing up. He was one of those kids whose family spoke to them in Spanish, but he always responded in English. That's his first language. But once I started to become more involved in 00:02:00education, and as a bilingual teacher, my Spanish got better, and so I identify myself as Latina. That's really important to me at this point of my life, and it had been for a while.

INTERVIEWER: In one of your writings you describe your multicultural roots as an asset, how is that?

TENORIO: Well, I've thought about this a lot because I think I have an advantage in being able to see things in different ways. Just like being bilingual gives you the chance to look through two different sets of eyes, it's the same kind of thing. You know how language helps you to see things in different ways based on where that language is from. Same thing for me, I grew up in the culture of Germans, white culture, but also sort of being aware when people refer to 00:03:00minorities or refer to Hispanic people without their understanding that I was part of that. Especially as I got older, especially as I was in college and as i was beginning the career of a bilingual teacher. It gives you sort of, you can be kind of, what's the right word? you're invisible as that part of you, but you still get to take it all in and vice versa. Being in the Mexican community and hearing things being said, things that people might not have said had they known I had this other part of me, and you know that could be real positive, or it can be negative, but it gives you insights as to where people are coming from and some of the issues that are important to other people. So yeah, I feel good about that, I feel like I had an advantage that way and knew how to approach 00:04:00people based on that experience or based on that knowledge.

INTERVIEWER: You sound like you have a lot of experience crossing borders.

TENORIO: Yes, I think that it's probably a good way to phrase it, you know, and, I have used it, you know, both to my advantage and just to help other people, to help children, right. To able to talk to parents, be able to express understanding of different things, and to be open minded. One of the things I tell young people when they are teaching is that you can never make assumptions about people, and that's sort of based on my own experience. So yeah, it's a good thing.

INTERVIEWER: Tell me more about your experience, your educational experience.

TENORIO: Well, I grew up in a very middle class environment and went to catholic school when I was in elementary school, public high school, and I went to UW 00:05:00Milwaukee for my undergraduate degree. Basically, I think I had a pretty traditional education for that time. Growing up in a time where girls and women were certainly second class in regards to expectations and standards and encouragement for sure. I never really liked school that much, but I feel like I did well, and my dad had that expectation that we couldn't do anything but well. So I was very fortunate that way and when I was in high school I was really at the top of my classes academically. I went to see the guidance counselor when I was a senior and talking about what you were going to do when you graduated, and 00:06:00he told me I had three choices, and this was in all seriousness, you can be a teacher, you can be a nurse or you can be a social worker. You can pick one of those. You know, I was really taken aback because maybe I thought I'd like to have a law degree, I thought about that. So I left kind of disappointed. I knew I didn't want to be a teacher, my mother was a nurse and so I did not want to be a nurse. So I started out, uh, studying social work but that changed pretty quickly once I started getting involved in some field work and working with kids. I am the oldest of 6 children, so you know, it was kind of an easy thing for me to work with children, to work with younger children, so that was good. I 00:07:00don't know, boy, I don't know what else you need to hear.

INTERVIEWER: So that's what made you want to become a teacher, through your experience with social work?

TENORIO: Yeah, you know I was camp counselor and you know I found that could do that. I was successful with that, and I also felt that it would make a difference with young people. At that time, I wasn't very, my consciousness was not raised enough. My college time was in the time of Vietnam, and it was a time of war so a lot of what was going on was a lot of resistance and counter culture, and people really taking issue with the status quo, but I wasn't like that at that point. I reflect on that based on where I am now, and what the majority of my career was, which was very much being resistant to things and 00:08:00trying to change things, and all of that had an effect on me. But I just decided that I would get a teaching degree. What was interesting was that when I graduated in 73 and there were absolutely no jobs in education. All of the people who are now retiring had jobs, and there just weren't any jobs. I remember sending out resumes to school districts, probably 20 different ones and never receiving a response from anybody. It was pretty desolate. So, I wanted a job and I got out the yellow pages and started looking through the books and started looking at catholic schools and alternative schools, neighborhood schools, what do they called them? Community schools, I think that's what they 00:09:00called them, and the angels were ahead of the game, and so I got a job at Holy Angels and started the kindergarten there and had a wonderful experience as a teacher there.

INTERVIEWER: What other positions did you hold during your teaching time?

TENORIO: I was a kindergarten teacher for many years, K through 1st grade for about 26 years, and then the administrator at Fratney school, the principal there, so I basically been a teacher and very happy about that. I would never ever want to be an administrator but there was a real need to fill in, to be the principal at Fratney, which is my second home, and so I agreed to take it on, 00:10:00and it was a really good thing in so many ways. But it was hard. So much harder than I ever anticipated it would ever be, which is why I didn't want to be in the first place. So, I've basically been in those positions.

INTERVIEWER: When you first became a teacher, what were your expectations?

TENORIO: As a teacher? Well, I certainly think that my my main goal was to help children to learn, okay, my experience in the school of education at UW Milwaukee was really very good. I had excellent professors and teachers who really insisted on looking at children and the whole child, looking at multiculturalism unbelievably, reflecting on that a bit, holding firm to what 00:11:00was developmentally good for children. So those were kind of my guidelines, my guideposts, and still are in a lot of ways. I just really love being a teacher, and I forgot your question, so tell me your questions again, please.

INTERVIEWER: That's okay; I actually have another question about these early role models. Do you remember their names? How did they exemplify this teaching?

TENORIO: Well, I worked as a little school as a nursery teacher because I couldn't get a job, and the woman who was there, her name is Lee Allen, and Lee was a wonderful person. She evolved into many different things, one of which was being a teacher at UW Milwaukee and teaching other teachers how to look at 00:12:00children and teach them. I want to go back to that, just quickly to say that my role was to set an environment where children could learn instead of teaching them and filling up their heads.

That to me was really important and Lee helped me to learn that. I think that there were other people that I worked with. When I worked at holy angels there were some amazing teachers who would totally dedicated to the children and their lives.  Some of them were nuns and so that really-- another woman, Janice Jackson who is now in California and working in some educational role at the university out there, she is good friend still. She was really helpful to me 00:13:00those first years and it was just, I think, that whole community of Holy Angels that had such a strong mission to educate kids and to recognize their strengths as opposed to thinking of it as "oh we got to fix these boys and girls." It was almost 100% African American children in this "community school, Catholic school." So it was kind of a shock coming into another school because I had such a positive experience there, I learned how to teach at Holy Angels School and that experience really helped me a lot.

INTERVIEWER: Because it was literally a community of angels?

TENORIO: It was a community of angels, that is exactly right. I was left to figure it out. I was starting the kindergarten, so there really was nothing. We cooked a lot that year. We did a lot of walking around in the neighborhood. 00:14:00Field trips, we just did not have any materials. We worked only half a day, but it was great. I was so happy to have a job.

INTERVIEWER: When you entered the public schools, what were some of the challenges?

TENORIO: Shock. It was a real shock after being in Holy Angels because people's perspectives on the children were so totally different. There again, I helped to open the b bilingual program, duo-lingual program at Morgandale school here in Milwaukee. I'm proud of that, that I opened the kindergarten there too. But after being in a place where children were respected, the families were respected, it was really difficult for me because Morgandale was a school that was way on the Southside of Milwaukee, and there were children who came from the North side on buses to come to school. That had been going on for several years before I got there, but many of the teachers would describe the kids as "those 00:15:00kids" "those kids were like the bus kids" and really were not very positive about that they really were a part of the school community. They were sort of separate from the rest of the boys and girls who lived in the neighborhood. So that was kind of hard and there were only two of us that began the program of kindergarten and the first grade. We had to kind of be a little quiet, we couldn't just make people upset with us. That is the last thing you want to do because the bilingual program was also intruding, in their mind, their beautiful school, their beautiful white school.

INTERVIEWER: What year was that?

TENORIO: That was 1980. Overtime and it is still a program, with both the bilingual program, second language program and the traditional program. 00:16:00Morgandale is a school where all the kids come to school as English speakers and it's like Spanish as their second language program, and so I did that. It was interesting because I still see children and families from that time I was there. It was a good experience overall, but also, because I felt so isolated in that school based off what everybody else was doing, I started looking for other colleagues with who I could identify with more, which is really where most of my consciousness started around multiculturalism, around my culture, around Mexican culture, racism and anti-racism. I had never felt in my life that I had been discriminated against so overtly as when I started in the public schools. The 00:17:00secretary, she was a sweet lady, one of the first days I was there said to me "oh, your English is SO good" and I said, well yeah I've been speaking it since I was a year old. But this expectation people had, "oh you grew up around 5th and National? Is that where you grew up?" and it was like no, I grew up out in West Allis and then one day she found out that my family and her family both had a lake cottage in the same lake, and she about fell off the chair. How could that be, how could that be?! And you know, it was sort of assumptions and expectations about who you are, and because of the fact that I was now a "bilingual teacher" then I was fit into this place. Then it really woke me up. 00:18:00So I started talking, unbelievably, Milwaukee Public Schools had a human relations department that gave workshops to teachers on the weekend. It was after the desegregation, and there was a lot of concern about teachers not being able to meet the needs of kids because they were of different cultures and there were a lot of concern by people of color in the district about the ways teachers were interacting with kids of color because they weren't prepared, and as sad as it is, it is still like that today where the majority of the teachers are not of the background of the students they teach, and so that is where I met people, at these workshops. It was in these human relations workshops that I met some of the people that I still interact with and have been really important to me.

INTERVIEWER: So networking was important?

TENORIO: Oh yeah, networking was really important. And again, people use to say 00:19:00"I am the only teacher in my school who believes these things, what do I do?" And it's like you find other people. You figure it out. I found people in my teacher's union, people through other people, through other bilingual schools, that you know, had the same mindset and others who were good hearted but didn't necessarily know what to do or even how to name what was wrong with the school. Some of the influences, Peterson in particular, really helped me to begin to think in different ways.

INTERVIEWER: When was this?

TENORIO: In the early 80s.

INTERVIEWER: And you were still a beginning teacher?

TENORIO: Well, I had worked six years at Holy Angels School, so I wasn't a brand new teacher, but I was still in the younger stages, yet it was interesting 00:20:00because I really thought I had it all figured out at that point. My children that I taught they really liked the classroom, their parents really liked the classroom and were very supportive. Other people really felt that it was going well, but then little by little I began to understand that some of what I was doing, it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough in particular issues around anti-racism and multiculturalism, and over that time was also when I started to get more involved in the Teacher's Union with the radical caucus that was in the union.

INTERVIEWER: Tell me more about the radical caucus.

TENORIO: Well, Milwaukee Teacher's Education Association, is a union that was independent for many years. They grew up away from WEAC in the 70s, after the teacher's strikes in the late 70s. One of the issues was really around teachers 00:21:00being assigned and seniority being the main issues as opposed to how many African American teachers were in school versus the white teachers and there was a real priority. MTA was always considered very white and the leadership was very white and always had been. And so some of us began to raise questions about that and about what we were doing to promote multiculturalism, and what we were doing to give support to the educational part of the union. We found that it was important for the Teacher's Union to take stands on the quality of education and not just on wages and hours and working conditions for teachers. And that, that was like blasphemy in the minds of some of these people, in some of the leadership.

So, we really, there was probably a caucus of about 10 of us who, at that point, 00:22:00put an amendment to the constitution, running for office, and being put down about that. I was elected to the executive board of the union, probably because they didn't really know who I was at that point and time. And, again, I found other people, as few as they were in the union, other teachers, who were open minded to the notion of let's take a look and let's change. Let's have some people work hard to try and reshape what was going on. Part of it was that the union staff really controlled the union. The union is the people, it's the teachers. But that wasn't the mindset. That was not the paradigm in MTA.  I gave ten years of my life to the executive board, four years as the Vice-President of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, and I think back 00:23:00to that. I don't think there were any other Latinos or Latinas that were elected prior to me, which is a good thing that I got elected. It was rough because there was so much opposition to the kinds of ideas that were being promoted by the group of people that I was a part of.

INTERVIEWER: Can you give me some names of people in that group?

TENORIO: In my group? Well I was there for sure, Marge Freshwater, Crystal Schnaski, Mike Langdell, who still is, well I think he is retired too, Al Simpson, was an amazing guy. He was an older teacher and was the lone voice on the executive board for so many years. Sandy Ochowsky, oh goodness, lots of people.

INTERVIEWER: What sort of projects did you pursue?

TENORIO: One of the most important ones was a writing contest that we promoted 00:24:00for, we advocated for outside of the union and outside of education; the Martin Luther King holiday, that it would be an officially recognized holiday, an actual holiday. One of the things that we tried to do was to bring awareness and bring multiculturalism into the Milwaukee Public Schools. We initiated a writing contest that was held in late November early December where children were, we would take a quote, actually it still goes on, took a quote from Dr. King and children would write to that quote, write to the topic and there was recognition for a group project that went kindergarten, second and third grade, fourth and fifth grade, fifth and sixth grade awards all the way through high school. 00:25:00Again, this was, were just going to do this. We had no idea where we were gonna get any money to do this not that that was that important. It was a lot of organizing, it was a lot of getting information out to all the schools, encouraging teachers to submit essays form their children, figuring out the judging process, inviting people from the community to judge it. To help to decide who were the winners. And then helped to organize the awards ceremony, and boy! I learned a lot about doing that kind of thing from that. That was my project, organizing it for several years and that was one of the ways we really built the network throughout Milwaukee Public Schools, because we had people in other schools that became sort of our contact.

INTERVIEWER: I would like to ask you about your English language learning students, and what was their background and how did you address them.

TENORIO: Well, you know, Milwaukee is a sort of a city where different populations of Latinos live in different parts of the city, so when I was working on the Southside the English language learners were mostly Mexican-Americans. Here in River West where Fratney is and where I live its Puerto Rican and some Mexican kids. And then on the Northwest side of Milwaukee, there are a lot of Central American kids, immigrants from Central America. So, when I was at Morgandale I taught mostly Mexican kids. At Fratney we had a lot of Puerto Rican kids, but we also had kids from the city wide school. We had children who came from other parts of the city, so it wasn't much more of a 00:27:00mixture of children.

INTERVIEWER: Both before Escuela Fratney and after Escuela Fratney? How did you address their language needs?

TENORIO: By taking kids where they come and helping them to grow. Helping Spanish speaking children to learn English is not a difficult thing. English is a language of power in our society. As a result, I have never met a Spanish speaking kid who did not want to learn English. So, it was really sort of a, it was not a difficult thing. You know, with the support of the teachers who were directly teaching English as a second language, that was great having their support at getting extra work on grammar, or work on, you know. At Fratney, because it is a duo-lingual program, kids really learned that second language, 00:28:00whether that was Spanish or English, as much from each other as they did from the teachers or as they did from any of the other staff. English language learners, the academics pieces, were never too hard. The language issues were never really hard to motivate them. The motivation piece was not there. Part of what was difficult was keeping the kids to feel strong and proud about their Spanish and helping them to understand how they should be strong and help other people to learn Spanish just as much as their peers learned English. As they were each learning each other's language. There was also sort of a, a real difference, in the advocacy for children based on whether they come from an 00:29:00English speaking family or a Spanish speaking family.

One of the things I really loved about Fratney, and it is still a wonderful thing, is that children come from all over the city, but they also come from very different backgrounds. We have boys and girls in our school that are the children of teachers and professors, children whose parents work in the government as alderman or all those things and doctors. We have a lot of children whose family bring them to Fratney because they want this kind of experience for them. But we also have boys and girls who are coming who have never been to school before. Children who have no experience with letters, children who were not really able to articulate the same kind of experiences that some of their peers had, but you know what they did have? Spanish. They did have the language of instruction that all those kids who were from doctors and 00:30:00lawyers, had no clue about. So they had a real advantage, that is one the things with Fratney, that if we talk about, we would go into more.

The other piece was around parents. Middle class parents know so much better how to work the system and how to get their voices heard so it's always been a challenge to make sure that the voices of the Latino parents, the voices of Spanish speaking parents are heard. Going to, trying to advocate for people on our school governance council, we never officially have quotas for how many people vote. We've always had on our by-laws that our council needs to reflect the population of our school. So, convincing our Latino parents to run as part of the council, to come and not feel shy about it, and not feel like they don't have anything to bring was always a challenge, but a very worthwhile project to do.

INTERVIEWER: How do you think this connects to your anti-racist and anti-hegemonic projects in schools?

TENORIO: Because there are multiple voices, and multiple perspectives that are presented. To me, that is what it is really about. Education should be children learning, and learning that there isn't one perspective on so many things. I've even talked to math people who will tell you that a triangle is not really a triangle (giggles) if you look at it from another perspective. And math is always supposed to be like there is no variation when it comes to the facts of math. But goodness, in so many other areas there are, there is, more than one way to look at it, and that's what Fratney really teaches and so many things like: whose voice is being heard, let's find out what she thinks about it, what 00:32:00he thinks about it, let's find out what some other adult or some other person out of history thinks. That is one perspective, but that's not the only perspective.

INTERVIEWER: Can you tell me about the whole language philosophy and how you applied it in the classroom?

TENORIO: Sure, when Fratney was first built there were four whole languages was an important part. Now, they don't call it whole language anymore because at one point it became taboo to talk about whole language because of the people who wanted phonics approach just tore it up. So people called it constructive and other things now instead of whole language. But, we felt that it was really important in building our school because of the diversity of our school, that there would be an approach that would represent and would also support kids from 00:33:00lots of different backgrounds. Whole language is a philosophy that talks about utilizing literature, quality children's books, in opposition, or not in opposition, alongside basil readers or the kinds of reading books that would probably all have growing up, and also the writing of the children themselves. So, kids, learned to read by reading, learned to write by writing that is very much a part of it. It's also important to whole language that you can work with kids in what's called a project approach so that you have something going on where kids, no matter where they are, what their background is, that they can find success in a project as opposed to here is page 32 and do the work, and then if you can do that you're successful and if you can't, you fail. An example 00:34:00of that would be we had a project where we took a look at the scientific part of different colors of people's skin. Talking about melanin, talking about how it is that you get your skin color. So, it is something where we did experiments, we did mixing of different colors, we talked about it, we wrote about it, we read lots of books about it. Which is really important.

When I first started teaching there weren't things like that. Today, there is so much in children's literature that can be utilized. But every kid had something to say about that, and at the start of the project they had less to say about it, and by the end of the project they had a lot to say about it. So, they wrote about it, we had poetry about it, we learned talking to other people. There's a 00:35:00great part of the unit where kids are asked to name their color. So, is your color like cinnamon? Is your color like chocolate? And then they were supposed to go home and find something that was the same color. So they would have to find something whether it was a piece of wood, or whether it was a doll or whether it was something out of the cover to bring and share. You know, those types of things, parents love that. Getting involved and writing, again, writing something small. A project in which every kid can be successful in and something to share in their different perspectives, so whole language really supports that. That's what whole language is about. You still need to teach the phonics, you still need to learn your basic facts, right? You still have to, all these 00:36:00other pieces. It is really, in my mind, a real road to study and the library was so important and still is at Fratney. That you have a huge library full of materials which children can learn from.

INTERVIEWER: That sounds so wonderful.

TENORIO: It is really great. It is great.

INTERVIEWER: Were you involved in social justice activities outside of school?

TENORIO: I was thinking about that question and you know, I was pretty consumed for education and what was going on at Fratney, and that really was my primary work. On the other hand, my husband is very involved in various issues of activism around peace, and anti-war things, so certainly involved with that. Taking a look at all of the May Day celebrations and issues around immigration, I was never a leader in any of that but I participated. I gave support to that, 00:37:00gave support to political candidates who were speaking of things, school board races, being a part of union issues that spoke to justice for union workers.  Those are the kind of things I like to do and be involved in, but boy, I think I was pretty focused on education and the issues around education.

INTERVIEWER: And you have contributed a lot.

TENORIO: Thank you. I think about it, I'm kind of amazed. It used to be years when I go to teach and then I go to a four o'clock meeting, and then there was a six o' clock meeting, and then you'd meet with people just to reflect on some of these things and plan for the next day. And maybe get home by 9 or 10 and then you'd have your supper. But it was like, I look back in that think "how did I 00:38:00ever have the energy to do that" because I sure don't now. I think about it positively for sure.

INTERVIEWER: Let's talk a little about rethinking schools and I'd like to know what inspired you to found this.

TENORIO: Okay, it's a story like any other things that go on. The caucus, the union caucus, we had ties to MTW, but we were also very involved in some of the educational things going on like the policies, the school board, the whole issue of multiculturalism in the schools, specifically. Helping teachers to think in more progressive ways, and one of the things that people found was that it got to be kind of frustrating to go to school board meetings, to speak to the board, or to be places where your voice was said, but as soon as you left your voice 00:39:00went out like to the wilderness and it wasn't something concrete. So, a group of people, including Bob Peterson and myself, Tony Baez was a part of this early on, Aurora Ware, and other people of, you know, a real multicultural group of people were involved in thinking about what could we do to develop a newsletter or something where these issues could be written about and presented in a way that they wouldn't disappear after they were said.

First of all, there was a study group of people, and we read things and we looked at them and we talked about critical pedagogy, Paulo Freire, and all that kind of stuff. Then it was like, yeah, we have to do something. So then, there 00:40:00was another year where we tried to think, okay, let's do this newsletter and think of how it will be, and it really became apparent that it couldn't just be a two-page newsletter and that we had to do something more than that. Our purpose was to provide another perspective on what was going on in the school because you'd see the school boards' perspective on stuff. You'd see the unions' perspective on stuff, but the voices of teachers, voices of people closer to the process, weren't being presented. That was our goal, and that was out mission. To try and offer not only criticism, on what was happening, but also ideas and thoughts about what can change and how things can change.

That was one of the initiations of Rethinking Schools. It took those two years 00:41:00for the first issue to come out of rethinking schools with many revisions. Lots of meetings. There's always been and still is in Rethinking Schools, a high standard for writing, for critique, for what's accepted even as a potential article. People wrote things that were totally trashed sometimes. People in the group would say no, no, no, we cannot use this, this isn't right. Go back and try again.  Think it was in '86 that the first issue came out. Pretty amazing.

INTERVIEWER: What was the reaction?

TENORIO: I think, really skepticism because people, first of all, it wasn't anticipated, it wasn't like here comes Rethinking Schools, and it was a very small group of people who were doing it and in a very small space. Actually it 00:42:00was just Bob's house or my house. This was just kitchen table stuff with rub-on letters. Computers were, we used the Apple 2E to write the columns and stuff. Then it was all cut and pasted using what they called the glue that could step on with, I don't know if you know of those things, but you know, it was pretty amazing. When it came out it was like "oh my god" people were like "who are these people?" There was this notion that somehow or another, these were folks who were trying to undermine us, there were folks in FTA who were really worried about us. They thought we were with AFT plans because MTA was affiliated with, or more aligned, with the national education association as opposed to the AFT, which is the other big rival of union organizations nationally. But, it was 00:43:00really skepticism. On the other hand, it was really, the whole idea of voices not being dismissed really shifted because here was this publication that wrote these things that were thoughtful, that were critical and it was, it caused a stir. It definitely caused a stir.

The first issues were newspapers as opposed to the magazines. We distributed them for free for many, many years. We had people place them in different places. Our network that we had developed with the Martin Luther King writing contest gave us teachers who would then take them to their schools and distribute them to the teachers that were there. Little by little we built the number of people who got the newspaper. Again, it was an amazing organizing 00:44:00effort where we would get the papers delivered, we had the papers delivered to Bob's house, and we had a group of people get together with lists from the schools. They said how many teachers were in schools, counted the newspapers, bundled the newspapers, and then had people who were willing, you know, I had ten schools I had to deliver to and I, oh man! No staff, no people, no money. We borrowed money in the beginning just for the paper to be published. David Levine lent us money, we had to do that. We had to collect the subscription stuff was in the little shoe box, I mean to pay attention to that. Little by little the subscription grew and it raised attention not only in Milwaukee, but beyond that. We recognize that teaching we can't do that so we had to hire some staff 00:45:00little by little.

Now it is much bigger, and one of the things that I wanted to say is that the union would not let us distribute the newspaper at the meetings. We had to put the bundles of paper outside of the school where the meeting was held, and then people would pick up the bundles outside of the building because they wouldn't even let us have them in the building. And then, little by little they started to feel sorry for us, I think during the winter months and they let us in the lobby. Then after they did the whole elections some years later, where myself and a few other ran and got positions, that we became part of every building reps committee four times a year, and people would pick up their bundles. It was little by little that building reps started to think that it was just part of their job to pick up the newspaper in the mail and distribute them at their 00:46:00schools. But then, it became clear that if we were going to have an impact beyond Milwaukee, that it was important that it evolved. The discussion of keeping a newspaper or begin to be a magazine took a lot of time and a lot of conversation. But that is the status that it's now and it's very interesting. We have people who are editors, and the managing editor she lives in Berkeley, California. So really, it's an editor who is all over the country and has a lot of conference calls, and two meetings a year where people get together and talk about the big picture of Rethinking Schools.

We have subscriptions all over the country and actually international too, it's kind of cool. I'm not as involved in it as I was. Once I became the principal at 00:47:00Fratney, that was too hard. I just didn't have time, but that's one of my goals as I get into this whole retirement thing. I want to get more involved in Rethinking Schools.

INTERVIEWER: So, in the newsletter, now, in the magazine, you are a contributor and editor. What were the roles?

TENORIO: Yeah, both of those things. A contributor, an editor and as the paper bundler, but really just whatever it took. I was very much involved in that. Helping to do the leg work related to that. I also used to proofread and I really liked that. Going over reading things and then helping to edit. That way sitting on the board, there's a board separate from the big board, the board of directors, and I sat on that for a lot of years.

INTERVIEWER: What do you think the readership is now?

TENORIO: I'm ashamed to say I really don't know. I really don't know lots. 00:48:00People use the magazine in classes and universities. Also, Rethinking Schools also publishes other kinds of resources, books and pamphlets, and different things to help support teachers in their classrooms. They have hosted several kind of writing retreats or helped with conferences, but the primary thing is publishing the magazine. But, that doesn't pay the bills. It's the books and, really, basically the books that help subscriptions, and so, everyone should get a subscription. That's important.

INTERVIEWER: Are there any issues or articles you are particularly proud of?

TENORIO: The ones that I've written, and I've not written that many, but the 00:49:00ones that I've written about young children and helping young children to begin to think in a multicultural, anti-racist way. There's one that's called "Race and Respect Among Young Children" that I think it's a really good article and has been used in various ways, and I think is still current. People want to re-print it and stuff. You know talking about the real experience, about the fact that young children, you know, my Master's Degree is on this issue, around people saying that young kids don't understand racism. Little kids, they don't see that. They're color blind, but it isn't the true. When you're in a kindergarten classroom, you say, "come and sit down in the circle "and I watch kids who come to the circle and they'll sit down, and the kid of a different culture or different skin culture will sit next to them and they will get up and 00:50:00move to a different place. Where they are in the housekeeping corner, the casita, and they will go in there and they will play and their roles will be defined; you're gonna be the mom, you're gonna be the dad, that kind of thing. But then also, you have the I'm gonna be this, I'm gonna be the princess and the African American kid will say "well, I want to be a princess too" and some other kids, some other more light-skinned kids will say "black people can't be princesses." Or calling them, one experience was that a kid was mad at another kid and he called her brownie or something. It very much not meant the "n" word or anything of that sort, but for a five-year old, it was very much an indicator that he recognized her racial background and was gonna vacation with it.

So, in many classrooms, those wouldn't be noticed. People don't see that stuff. It is very subtle. Talking about issues of race with kids who are dark-skinned, they put their hands under the table when you start to talk about it because they don't want to be. You would ask a kid, "let's look at the colors of your skin" and they would not want to because they were very aware of the fact that the darker you are, the browner you are, it's a different thing. We spent a lot of time in my classroom and our first grade unit working really hard in trying to help the kids to raise such issues.

INTERVIEWER: And that's where the article you wrote came from?

TENORIO: Oh, yeah. Sort of the movement along the continuum of becoming a social 00:52:00justice teacher you don't wake up one day and say "oh, now I get it," right? As I said before, it's sort of like "phew, I thought I had it all together." I was a great teacher, just kind of well on the continuum. In September we talked about getting into school and in October we talked about Halloween, in November we talked about thanksgiving, you know we were moving along this holiday curricula- Which is obviously one way to teach with projects around Halloween, projects around Thanksgiving, but I never, it never occurred to me, that there were other perspectives on thanksgiving or Columbus Day when I first started teaching. That was a long, hard road because you have to get past the notion of "but I have always done it this way" or feeling guilty and thinking "oh my god, 00:53:00how many lives have I ruined by talking about the pilgrims and the Indians." I don't think I ever went that far. Again, just presenting the notion that lets the children talk about what they know about thanksgiving, what they know about Columbus Day, "are there other people that celebrate Thanksgiving? Why do you think that it is? What do you think is the issue around that?" And, again, we would send homework home and ask their parents to help them to think about that.

It was always so interesting because I wasn't necessarily the one who next day had to say Columbus founded salve trade in this continent because somebody's homework would say that, right? And we could talk about "Karen's family says this, and you know, it's true" and then again, that's the opening for me to talk about what was going on. Again, trying to stay away from the mainstream 00:54:00holidays, and instead take a look at issues and projects looking at issues and things that way. Luis German Sparks is a very, she is definitely one of my models, she wrote the Anti-biased curriculum so many years ago for early childhood teachers, and that was a real important eye-opening kind of thing and I've had the privilege many times of talking with her and working with her, being in conferences, and really, very pleased, she asked me to write an article for the second edition. That's the kind of stuff. Little by little, by little helping people to understand, "you might not be there, but you don't want to 00:55:00stay where you are," but I also feel that once you hear the story about Native Americans and the myth that the thanksgiving story is really a myth because it didn't really happen, you never forget that. You will never be able to go anywhere, even if you don't speak out about it you won't forget about it once consciousness has been raised. So, again, back to multiple perspectives, it is a good thing to do. Don't trust what the people say to you as the only thing that is correct.

INTERVIEWER: That was beautiful. Let's talk about Escuela Fratney, and tell me about your role in starting that school.

TENORIO: As many things have happened in my life, it's like it's not something I went looking for. Some people have lives where they say "I'm going to be a 00:56:00lawyer or I'm going to travel the world, this is what I'm going to do, these are the goals that I have for myself," and I don't know that I ever had that. It's been so -- in many different ways for me to have these things in front of me that I was able to participate in without sort of defining them and working to get to that place, I am not sure if that's clear. But come back to Rethinking Schools, and working with Rethinking Schools there's always been a notion of if we had the best environment for children what would it be? Writing about that, looking for examples of that in other places around the country. Peterson and myself ran a summer program with a couple other people, it was called Amazing 00:57:00Place, wonderful experience that summer, and it was really great because we got to do some of those things. We got to talk with the kids and we sort of joked about "oh, someday we will have our own school, someday we will do this, someday we will be able to promote this kind of education."

The following year, all of a sudden we realized that the Fratney building was going to be emptied of children and of staff and of everything, and all of those children were going to go to the Gansett school, which is over on this side of River West. They built a brand new school, Gansett school has many disabled kids and kids who have really severe needs. Plus, kids that are not severe, but there was a real push at that time and still is today that handicapped children who 00:58:00were disabled kids shouldn't be isolated. It was a school that was just for boys and girls who needed that extra help. So, they combined both schools and the building was empty, and there were all kinds of ideas from the administration about what should happen in the building. At one point, it was presented that there should be a school that was for shaping up bad teachers. That it would be based on Battle and Hunter, she was an educator who had programs, and that kids would come to the school and the teachers who would be in that school would be Master's teachers, and what they would do is have principals around the city refer teachers from their buildings who were bad, who weren't doing good things, 00:59:00and they would send them to Fratney.

The Master's teachers would shape up those bad teachers and at that same time they would send good teachers to the school where that teacher came from. Shape up the situation at their end of their bargain, and then put everyone back where they belonged. Needless to say, it was really a lot of upsetness about that. Not only from the fact that, how do you define Master's teachers" to the fact that parents were saying "what the heck am I going to send a kid to school when all they would be doing would be getting taught by bad teachers," right? Then, this rotation of people, while the people at central services, at the administration, at the MPS would like, they were upset that people were contradicting between that.

At that same time, there was a group of the school board members that encouraged other proposals. Bob and, other people, Becky Tracer and a bunch of people 01:00:00thought "this is our chance." So Bob said "we have to write a proposal," and they thought "oh they do that, I do this" but no we'll do it, well work on it the next months." So they said, "no, no, no, we need to have it in by next week." So it was sort of, "oh please." I couldn't believe it, but you know what? We did it. We put it to the school board and lower behold, they actually encouraged us to go further with it. That was like in November or December. In February there was a public hearing and, I mean, these are great stories. It was a terrible storm outside, really, for real, they closed the schools the next day. There were 75 people who came out to the school board meeting to advocate for this proposal. Parents and community members, and teachers, and all kinds of 01:01:00people, they gave us permission to do this. Never the administration was like why is this? Because they knew what to do about developing schools, how teachers and community members know anything about developing schools. Well, we got the proposal, but then it was like "oh my god, now we have to do this, but how are we going to do this," and that was sort of the beginning. Over the next months and through the summer we worked hard to try and start the beginnings of the Escuela Fratney. We knew that we wanted parents and teachers in running the school, but they insisted in giving us a principal. That was way too radical and that was fine. There would be bilingual and dual-language and it was not anywhere, not even in WI at this point and time- having the whole language approach and the main focus being multicultural anti-racism education.

We had the audacity to put all of these things forward and really work at it. There are hundreds of stories, lots of resistance from the administrators. People did not support or give us the support that is certainly given at this point.  Now you talk about a new school proposal, well, people are released to develop the curriculum and you get a principal assigned from the get-go. We didn't get the principals assigned to our school until August before school opened. They had assigned someone to be the principal, who was from the suburbs around Milwaukee, and she didn't speak Spanish, she spoke German as well as English and had never taught in the public schools here in Milwaukee. So, we had to tell this poor woman, "You can't be our principal." I mean, there are stories 01:03:00and stories and stories. It was really hard; it was really hard. We had no clue whether we'd be around for six months or for a year. It was all new children. I think lots of kids who, well they all came from other schools or were new kindergarteners, but they came from other schools where people said you know, "she might do better in a new school, why don't you have her sign up for the Escuela Fratney." So the kids, a lot of the children weren't necessarily the most successful in the school's academics. I had been very used to being in a school community where everyone knew me. I had the second and third children of the same family, and I knew the parents, and I knew the circumstances there. Now, we were in a school where nobody knew who you were. How did they know me from anybody else? Kids would look at me and like "who are you talking to," "who 01:04:00do you think you are," and it was like "oh, okay."

So it was a major, we had to do k through 5. Now they would never do such a thing like that. So kids who were fifth graders had never heard a word in Spanish in their lives. Then little kindergarteners who were scared to death of having a second language put forth to them, it was hard. But we had an amazing, amazingly strong group of people who were very dedicated to this idea. The school vision that we had at that point is still intact, that's official. It talks about many of the points that are on Rethinking Schools and Rethinking Our Classrooms at the beginning of there is a section that talks about what a good school would be, so we have been working at it. Twenty-five years next year and 01:05:00we will have a big party.

INTERVIEWER: Congratulations, and how does it expand to your expectations from the very beginning?

TENORIO: I don't think we knew at all what we were getting ourselves into and it has been a struggle since day 1. We've had different issues, but at the very beginning people didn't bug us about curriculum very much at all because the district didn't have a real strong curriculum. They did bug us about the notion of hiring teachers. We were the first school in Milwaukee that docked the waiver in the contract, in the school contract, in order to hire teachers for our school and not just have the ones transferring in. That was radical because people felt that it had to be seniority, now every school in Milwaukee hires their teachers. They are hired by the district, but then they interview in different places. So teachers and parents being in equal numbers on the school 01:06:00governance councils was like "oh my god, no, we can't possibly have that. Teachers have to be in the majority." Being able to do some things outside of the contracts or doing it inside the contract, but with the permission was really something that Fratney was very unique in. But it was hard.

It was always a struggle, and I felt like there were some moments in time where the activism happened, not only in Fratney, but in the union and in the district as the whole, because the district was also changing and moving in different directions during that time, and I had a role there. Those things took as much time or more time than my teaching, and that was hard because then I felt like, 01:07:00well, am I giving the children as much time as I should? But at the same time those were the things that were going to make a long term difference. We've had many changes at Fratney to the design of the duo-language program as we learn more about what that really meant, and what worked well, and what was better for children.

We've changed. Curriculum issues have changed dramatically, now that's the thing they bother us the most about, the curriculum, and how many minutes of this and how minutes of that. The whole business of project approach is very much challenged by the way people look at what teaching and the curriculum should look like. We have not wavered from that and Fratney is not wavered from that. We had to modify that. Those are things that have been hard. They have been 01:08:00really hard. Losing money, budget cuts and cuts and cuts. At one point, we've always had really good staff, people who know why they know they're coming to Fratney they have to work hard. We don't have lines of people waiting to interview for Fratney. We do have more now in the last few years. I think people have recognized kind of coming into its own but we would have to go out and really search for folks to teach because we were really scary to some people, to the district. We've had wonderful staff. At one point we had 13 teaching assistants, now we have one and there are several others but they specifically for the children with special needs. S we don't have anymore, we have no music 01:09:00teachers, no physical education teacher, our art teacher is half time. We have battled to keep our school librarian because our library is so very important. But those have been battles as long as I can remember every year at budget time. Okay, how are we going to figure this out? Who do we talk to? Where are we going to get some extra money? But so far we have been able to hang on.

INTERVIEWER: That's great to hear. That although there are challenges, the school continues to function. Do you think it has been a model for other schools in Wisconsin or across the country?

TENORIO: We get lots of visitors, lots of people who come and lots of people who want to learn about duo- language in particular. There is a lot of respect for Fratney and the primary things that people say to us when they come to visit 01:10:00have to do with the bilingual program, the duo-lingual program and how that functions, and their children being able to communicate in their second language well; that they don't react negatively when the language of instruction is not their first language. So people are kind of flabbergasted by that. To have them speaking two languages. But then the other thing is the atmosphere, the climate in our school. That is one that consistently people are like "my goodness, people are really respectful, everything is calm and positive," and that absolutely has to do with the form of our mission and vision from the first day 01:11:00of opening the school. There has never been any discussion or challenge to the fact that we have open doors in our school. Parents are respected, the secretaries talk kindly and our secretaries have to be supportive of the families. The principal's office is there, but it's there to welcome people and not to restrict people. I get amazed when I hear about principals who never come out of their office often. I can't imagine that. Just being out and about is important whether it is to go get a screaming four-year old out of the classroom because they don't want to share, to really counseling children, to enjoying their writing celebrations with them or dumping trays in the cafeteria. All of those jobs.

INTERVIEWER: Are you describing your time as principal?

TENORIO: Yes, very much so. It's a job that in my opinion is sort of like, well first of all, the best things about my teaching career is that no two days are ever the same, that you never know what's going to happen, that you feel like "oh I've seen it all," and then the next day something happens that you can't quite believe. Well that was intensified in tenfold becoming a principal because you would have your day completely planned and full to do many different things, and then "boom!" something happened. Somebody gets hurt or a teacher has to leave because something happened in her family. You are constantly troubleshooting about various problems, but then you also get kids who just need care and help and there is no question about that. When a kid comes to school 01:13:00and it is obvious that something happened last night that was not good for them, you can't say "we'll let somebody else deal with it." I don't feel that. You spend a good part of your day figuring out what you will do to help that kid to not have to go home that night or to get them the services. A kid comes to school and their tooth is totally destroyed, how are they going to focus on anything else? But there is no health insurance, there's no support at home. Mom is who knows where, mom is working three jobs, and all of those kinds of things. That is as much as a part of a principal's job as the budget or as the hardest part for me was finding time to be an educational leader.

The leadership in curriculum as well as run the building, and in this day and 01:14:00age in schools the principals has to be everything. There is no other support, there is no assistant principal. So when something happens you have to be there. But then you also have to be at recess duty, and lunch duty because there aren't enough people. No more assistance which means that the teachers have to supervise. I would always be a part of that because I just felt they never asked teachers, and that your credibility is very much involved in that. I am a teacher first and I feel that's really important, and will continue to do that. Continue to advocate for kids, and that's my primary role as an educator, as an activist- to be an activist for children. I am not doing a lot right now because 01:15:00I need time to take a step back and figure out what I want to do. Where I put my energies.

INTERVIEWER: Do you have any ideas of where you might put those energies?

TENORIO: Oh I think I'll be back at Fratney. I mean I still go over there often to see the principal who is in charge, Sylvia Allanas, is the new administrator there. Just giving her support and helping her get through some of the craziness. Why should she struggle through the third Fratney report and trying to figure out what it is when I have done it a bunch of times, and I can say just do this, this, this and then it's done. So I'm helping her with those kinds of things, and just letting her know that she's doing a good job, and not to get discouraged because its hard trying to manipulate, get through the district, get through the bureaucracy, get through the fact that she goes to principal board meetings and you still feel very alone because other people don't think like 01:16:00you, and it's very much the status quo of what happens.

Even though there is lots of change, people still look at you "what are you talking about antiracist"? it's hard. It's hard because you then feel like "oh god, I gotta say this again." They talk about some initiative that's going to take place and you say alright, but what about bilingual schools?" Oh we haven't thought about the bilingual schools and they work on things. I think what I would probably do is spend some time and love the children. How wonderful to go into a place and just get 100 hugs. But I also think about doing some things, you know, Walgreens sometimes looks good to me with no pressure or stress on 01:17:00anything, but I know that there will be other things I want to do. I think about being at the University, I think about working with young teachers, but I really don't know yet. I'll still be busy. I'll still be active.

INTERVIEWER: What do you see as the legacy of all of your work in schools, rethinking schools, and these have ripple effects?

TENORIO: That's a hard thing. I don't think of myself in those terms singularly. This is about the groups of people that I have been involved with. This is about 01:18:00organizing, about folks who are dedicated in a very combined and community way to change things for the better. To respect young people who believe, not just in words, but really to understand that children are our future. I would say to the boys and girls "somebody's going to be the next Alderman in this classroom, who's going to do this? Because I'm going to be old and I need you to do this and this for me, and someday I won't be able to do this, and Governor Doyle is going to retire. Somebody else has got to take these roles." I really, truly 01:19:00believe that if we have those expectations for children, then things might change because you know that in the surrounding suburbs, those children know that they're going to be the next group of leaders in this community and this city and the state. And I would really, really like to see children in Milwaukee feel the same way and consider themselves as being able to get to those places. I see Rethinking Schools and la Escuela Fratney as environments where people do encourage kids that way, who help them to understand their potential and who make them feel safe and valued, but also help them to see that there is more than one way to look at the world.

Because now I meet kids after 25 years, they're all grown, and we have one young 01:20:00woman who is a teacher at our school now, she's a kindergarten teacher, and she was my student k-4 and k-5. She went to Fratney and taught in MPS, and interviewed at our school, so my Lara is so precious to me. There are other kids who are grown now, the chair of the County Board in Milwaukee is a child who was in my kindergarten, so I see things like that and it really makes me happy. They're both girls, by the way. Lots of other kids who are grown and we talk about the Fratney experience is so very important to them. I think that that's good, and that I never forget that I was going to do that. How many kids I ultimately had in my classroom, but just thousands of kids with Fratney, and you 01:21:00hope that they have positive feelings or that they know how important it is.

Rethinking Schools is another way, another voice, and I think it has had an impact. I don't think there is anything else like it out there. And boy, they talk about struggle, because all of us who were involved in the beginning, in our 25's is all getting to the point where were retiring and less able to do as much. Finding young people to want to take on those roles, wanting that to happen and yet not sure where to go but asking questions. Will the publication keep going? Where is the money going to come from? Those kinds of things, but I don't know. I just feel like I have had success, but I don't really see it as a singular thing. It is not about me, it's about being involved for social justice 01:22:00and for education as a whole. Be an advocate.

INTERVIEWER: Thank you so much.