I am Dixie Lingler, and I am running for DCTA Treasurer. I would appreciate your support and your vote.

We live in a world of constant change. The Internet has made available instant information. News travels in seconds around the world, and decisions are made at a speed that keeps us spinning. We no longer have the luxury of having time to process and reflect. We are continually bombarded with new information, new demands, and new things to implement into our daily working environment.

Our pace keeps us in a state of constant priorities. Everything must be done now, and little if none is eliminated from the list of to do things that are ever present on our agendas.

Politicians, corporations, and armchair education experts who continually make decisions that impact education, surround us. Yet, we are the teachers. We are those who think and analyze, and reflect and discuss, and bring forth that which works best for the students with whom we have deep and meaningful relationships. We are the few who truly have the power to influence and change generations. We are those who know and carry the history, and the meaning of all that has come before us. We are the catalyst and experts to make change meaningful. We always have been.

There was a time when teachers were revered and respected, a time when simple tokens of gratitude were given for service in our profession. Rewards of dedication for years of service were rewarded and thought of as badges of a job well done. It was a time of pride in what we did, a time when the challenge of doing well for our students made all the long hours meaningful, a time when teaching was a profession, a career, not just a job.

We fought battles to improve curriculum, to better classroom environments, to improve working conditions enabling us to work better for all of our students.

So, change, it is not new for us. We, the teachers, have always been the pioneers of change. We have always welcomed finding ways of improving the challenges that are ever present in our profession. We are the ambassadors because we know the crucial importance of whom we touch and where we can lead them. We are the builders of builders. So, fear not change. We need only to take the lead again.

I am running for Treasurer of DCTA to be a part of the executive board. I will not sit idly by and allow change to overrun me. I will lead, as teachers always have, with the knowledge that the necessary change that is so vital to the success of our profession rests with us.

I am a teacher. I have slowed down and recognized the single most important entity in my profession: My students. With them in the forefront, change must and will be purposeful.

“A diamond is just a piece of coal that handled stress exceptionally well.”
Teachers, we are those diamonds.