Q. Do you really believe that you can get all the kids in the group to buy into the story? Aren’t some kids just lazy?
A. I strenuously object to the idea that some kids are lazy. Rather, they are blocked. All people want is to be accepted into a community. But the community has to be set up in a way that they feel welcome. Then they won’t seem so lazy to us. We see how really filled with light and humor they are. It’s up to us. If we haven’t reached that level with a large portion of our students, we can’t just wait until the next year to see if they finally send us some better kids. Rather, we have to change what we are doing. It’s not about our comfort. It’s about theirs. We are in a position to be the first generation of WL teachers in the history of the world to break through in real ways to the kids. It certainly wasn’t happening in the 19th c. nor did it happen in the 20th c.
Tolstoy said:
“School is established, not in order that it should be convenient for the children to study, but that teachers should be able to teach in comfort. The children’s conversations, motion, merriment are not convenient for the teacher, and so in the schools, which are built on the plan of prisons, are prohibited.”
I’m not being part of that.