We take the data-collection piece of our work as a true and valid thing. It is not. We are serving a monster – the data collection business that makes millions of dollars off of us and our kids each year. It is sucking our souls, vampire-like, and we are letting it. COVID is here as an agent of change.
Each and every teacher reading this must absolutely understand and keep in the forefront of their minds the following:
When teaching this coming week, if any teachers on this PLC perceive themselves in even the slightest way as failing at this work, they need to know for a fact that they are not failing at all. They are valiant and courageous innovators, whose belief in what is possible has driven them to take risks. COVID is here as an agent of change, to help us.
How can any of us criticize ourselves for not being great at this work with CI when we are so alone philosophically, with pressure to perform and align with old ideas that don’t work , when each day we are surrounded somewhere by hostile people who are still tied to the outmoded grinding methods of the past, and surrounded also by ignorant admins forcing them into awkward situations professionally? COVID is here as an agent of change, to destroy the past institutions of our profession, for the betterment of humanity.
We are also surrounded as well by students who have had the life sucked out of them by a failed system so that they only think in terms of credits and the grade, and who are the victims of screen poisoning in their educations as well. COVID is here as an agent of change for them, too.
This is not the time to be taking your own inventory in this work. The success lies not in the results, but in the effort, the intent. COVID is here as an agent of change to help us.
Keep in mind that most of us here in this group are probably motivated by the highest of ideals, as expressed so beautifully by Soren Kierkegaard here:
…if I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible….
There are not enough of us yet, but the tide is turning. Stay strong. Just don’t believe everything they tell you about how to teach, testing, all of it. Don’t believe it. Trust yourself, learn to relax, do the best you can with CI, and if you are a praying person, it’s time now.