Big White Bird - Ben Slavic

I’m beginning to see more and more that one of the biggest enemies we face in this work are the very schools in which we do the work. The CI birds wings are just too massive for too many of the admins working in our buildings these days.

These admins are ignorant of the research and that inflicts a heavy price tag on on real change in f.l. education in our country, seriously blocking it. These ignorant (this word is not being used here pejoratively but only in the sense of the French verb “ignorer”, to not know) people think that they are qualified to observe us and comment on our work but they aren’t really.

They only see the shadows of the big bird’s wings over them and so they think it’s dark and so conclude that they have to ‘get after us’ with all their puny little regulations and ways of controlling us, like we’re some kind of idiots who need to be watched.

Instead of climbing on the back of the big CI bird, from whose perch they would be able to see that it’s not dark at all but the shimmering dawn of a bright new day, they insist on favoring shadowy teaching (teaching that is hiding something) in their buildings that is still rooted in the failed approaches of the last century.

What these admins need to do is become familiar with the research and THEN figure out how they want to supervise us. They need to climb up on the back of the bird, which is so big that there is room for everybody. In the meantime, in what they perceive as shadows and what we perceive as sunlight, we don’t get the help we need.

Indeed, most of us feel pulled down daily by most admins, back down toward the darkness that they experience that is really nothing more than a necessary period of APPARENT darkness caused by the shadow of the bird as it takes off towards the heavens.

I never want to get off the back of the Big CI Bird, because I waited so long to get on it (25 years). I like the sunshine. I no longer want to live in the sad and dark shadows of teaching methods that have been proven to fail and that don’t align with the research of the Communication standard.

Do children really need more harm inflicted on them by ignorant and narcissistic adults? (Many admins are narcissists, in my opinion after having spend over 40 years in 7 school buildings.)