The Advocacy Committee needs your help this fall. We need everyone to start whispering. Nothing large, nothing overwhelming. Nothing, but a small whisper; a tiny message. It can be as simple as passing out a brochure about the importance of language learning or discussing with students why language is important. The whisper could even be reminding your administration that language education still has no content standards.
You can whisper something even larger by mentioning all of the statistics about foreign language education and standardized testing. We need little birdies to whisper to new (and returning) teachers that their memberships for CLTA are up for renewal and the benefits of being a member. These classroom whispers will be come buzzes at schools, rumbles in individual districts and suddenly the Golden State will be hear the roar of language educators who are no longer sitting quietly and letting language education legislation happen. Instead we are going to lead the way to changes.
For a group of professionals who specialize in giving a voice to students, we have been silent for too long. We haven't been talking enough and consequently we have been left behind in education politics. The biggest changes will happen when individual CLTA members start whispering. First, make sure you are spreading the word about CLTA and its benefits to other language teachers. (And when I say whisper, I mean give them the membership form, fill it out for them, offer to mail it, buy them coffee, whatever it takes to get the non-member to sign the form and send in the check.)
There is strength in numbers and right now we need to do some heavy training to get ourselves strong. Next, be on the lookout for alerts from CLTA. You should be on an e-mail list from your local affiliate. This list is going to be vital in the coming months as CLTA will need you to do more advocating. There are big changes and events coming down the pipeline and CLTA is going to need your support. Action alerts will be distributed through these e-mail lists and through the new advocacy link at clta.net.
In the end the Advocacy Committee is more than just those of us who are meeting and writing these articles. We are made up of all CLTA members because we are all language advocates. CLTA is only as strong as its individual members and right now we need everyone to start to whisper.