A Texas teacher who went the extra mile, and then some, is taking part in today's inauguration events
Cathy Cluck, a US AP history teacher at Westlake High School in Austin took a 15 day road trip to start the fall semester so she could teach her virtual class from the places where history happened.
Now she's been tabbed to be a part of the virtual inauguration parade and is one of the featured "heroes in communities across the country."
She drove from Austin to the East Coast and back home. From Jamestown she taught her class about the first successful English settlement in North America. Her plans were to motor north to Boston to teach about colonial America, but Covid-19 restrictions in and around New York City at the end of August and beginning of September but a stop to that. She got as far north as Weehawken, New Jersey. She went west towards Gettysburg and then south to Memphis, Tennessee and the Lorrianne Motel, the site of Dr. Martin Luther King's 1968 assassination. She called the site powerful. "Knowing there was this pivotal moment in American history, and I was looking at the spot. I was right there."
"I got to do a lesson from the Lincoln Memorial and it was a beautiful day. I was sitting in front of the Lincoln memorial and I was zooming my classes. I swung my laptop around and said 'look, there's the Washington Monument. There's the Washington Mall. Being in DC and walking around the mall and show my kids live, this is it. That I think was the most meaningful lesson."
She says being in Gettysburg was somber, especially in light of the murder of George Floyd.
She believes she drove about 3,000 miles and exhausted by the time she got home, but so glad she got to experience this with her students.
She got an email from a segment producer from the Biden inaguration team on Friday, the 9th and then recorded a short video from the Texas State Capitol. "They asked me to talk about my trip and what I meant to me personally and what it made me think about, about being an American and unity. I talked about that. There was no political agenda at all. I was like, I can get behind that."
Cluck says the invitation was especially encouraging as a teacher. "It's been hard to be a teacher. My colleagues are working so hard and doing so much good work. I'm honored to be able to say I'm a teacher. Look at what we do. It's humbling."
