 Reg Weaver is an accomplished labor leader who served as president of the National Education Association from 2002 to 2008 and was vice president of Education International. He has served on many boards, including the NEA Foundation, and spent 30 years in the classroom as a science and health teacher. His trademark laugh keeps him light on his feet, even when the work is heavy. This stuff is so serious and so much of a challenge at times you got to laugh. You got to find something to laugh about. And so, when I'm speaking with our folks, I usually try to, you know, say something that allows them to have a good laugh. Reg is semi-retired now, but continues to speak and advocate for children and public education. His insights and experience from a long career remind us there are always lessons to be learned and that there's always room to change. You know, we as educators, we all do good things and we are remembered. And you remember those good things, but there are also some things that you do that are not so good. And sometimes you remember those, more so you remember the good things. There was a teacher and she was working with the students and she was giving them a math problem. And the first thing out of her mouth was 9 times 2 is 56 and then 9 times 3 is 27. 9 times 4 is 36. 9 times 5 is 45 and then she went on down to 9 times 9. And then she went to the students and the students were just laughing and she said, why are you laughing? And they said, because of the mistake that you made when you said 9 times 2 is 56. And the teacher said in essence that was done on purpose because it was done to show that everything else that I said was correct. But you only remember the one thing that I did that was incorrect. And she said that's what you might face in life. So don't give up. And I said wow. And so I thought about again something that I had thought about for years. I was an eighth grade teacher along with another female colleague. And as eighth grade teachers we were the eighth grade sponsors responsible for the graduation, class play, whatever. And so the two of us, mostly the ladies, we decided that the boys, if they came to graduation in these shiny suits, well, we would not allow them to walk across the stage. We would not allow them to participate in graduation. Now, I agree to that. And I didn't give it much thought because I knew that no kid would come to graduation in one of those shiny suits because they were expensive. So lo and behold, graduation came. And this one kid showed up in the shiny suit. They were known as air-descent suits. So the female teacher, she came over edge, edge. You know what we said? You the man. You the man. Now, back then you the man had a different context. You the man back then was, you are the man that is a sponsor and not the main man. I said no. She said yep, yep, you know what we said. So I had to go tell this kid and his parents that he could not walk across that stage. And the father came to me. He said Mr. Weaver, what's wrong? Why is it that my kid cannot graduate? Did he do something wrong? I said no. Did he fail? No. Was he disrespectful? I said no. He said well why is it that my son cannot graduate? You see, his father was a member of a very famous singing group. And on stage this singing group wore these air-descent suits to the pleasure of the crowd. And so he was saying that if it's good for the crowd that I perform in front of, then why is it that it's not good enough for my son to wear on graduation? I don't know whether this kid ever graduated from college or high school, but I do know that he met all of the qualifications to graduate from grade school. And I had to tell him that he couldn't do that. And it just bothered me and bothered me. And fast forward to about 25 or 35 years later, another member of the class, they had a large family and I had six or seven of their kids. You kept up with a lot of these kids, didn't you? Yeah. And they still today. Many of these kids are 60. So these kids invited me to a birthday party, their mother's 95th birthday. So it just so happened that I was in town during the time and when I walked in, the kids, they just bum-rushed me, you know. Mr. Weaver, Mr. Weaver, blah, blah, blah. And one of the kids who was sponsoring the birthday, Mr. Weaver, you know, there's so-and-so over there. And I looked and it was the kid I told couldn't walk across that stage. And he was sitting behind a very sophisticated looking turntable and he was more or less the DJ. And I went over to him. He said, Mr. Weaver. I said, man, is this you? He's, yep, this is what I'm doing now, man. One of the things that I'm doing. And, you know, I'm kind of in a singing group and my kids, you know, they're singing. And then I said, look, remember graduation night when I told you that you couldn't walk across the stage because of the expensive suit? He said, yeah. He said, the shoes were expensive too. He said, yeah, I remember. I said, look, man, I said, that has bothered me all of this time and I never knew that I would get a chance to see you. But now that I do, man, I am so sorry. I am so sorry. He said, that's okay, Mr. Weaver. Don't worry about it. Did he tell you anything else about that experience from his perspective? No. No. But it taught me some things. And it taught me that sometimes rules that you make, if you find that they're not working, change them. You know, sometimes people make rules and think that they can't be changed. But if, in fact, you find that there are some rules that you have established that are negatively impacting the lives of students, then you've got to figure out what to do. And if changing that rule is something that needs to be done, then that's something that you should do.