Lunch ladies are heroes

For 30 years now, TED talks have been enabling educated white people to think they have deep insight into the world. As an educated white person who thinks he has deep insight into the world, I like TED talks, and, precisely because I am their target audience, I have come to despise the smug preening of so many of them. Nonetheless, I subscribe to the TED podcast because every once in a while I hear one which touches on our common humanity rather than our overweening self-confidence. Jarrett Krosoczka's paean to lunch ladies is a lovely reminder that, whatever else one might say about the public schools, very many of their employees are decent human beings who genuinely are working for what they perceive to be the good of children. More: it's a reminder that what makes America great is a fundamental sense of decency which is grounded in a recognition of the value of human beings as such.

A running time of under 5 minutes, and I was weeping halfway through; if you have a heart, so will you.