Remember back in the Dark Ages when teachers would set the class up around a kind of temple (their desk) and then anoint the temple with their holy book (the textbook)? For those who can remember it, those were dark days indeed. That focus on the book and (God help us all!) worksheets left out all but a few of the students.
Those days were dark because the teacher thought that a material object with great density was more worthy of their attention than a bundle of light with infinite potential, which is what each of our students is.
They don’t fail. We fail them.
I used to think that being a teacher was just a job, but now I understand that, because of the nature of the raw material with which we work, it is nothing less than a sacred task. To see it any other way, the old way, is to perpetuate foolishness.
Today all over the country many teachers again mistook the false for the real, which is to say that they saw the content of their courses as more important than the students in their classrooms.
I’ll get over it. I know that you all are out there, swinging away. We can do this. We will do this. And it will change our lives, and other lives as well. And all we have to do is talk to the kids.