The Forest for the Trees

Teachers need to know when to inspire, challenge, chide or advise. I certainly don't claim to bat 1.000%, but I also try to observe and maintain the courage to say the things students need to hear. And I'm a firm believer that prompting a student to wonder what the hell I mean is a powerful move.  At the risk of sounding pretentious, I'm including a list of aphorisms. I share it not to suggest I'm clever or wise, but, as always, to encourage reflection.  Your value as a human being is not defined by a test score or a grade.  Your teachers don't have all the right answers. If they say they do, they're lying to you and themselves.  School won't save you, but it will expand you.  The research schools show you is data that correlates to what they call success. The research they don't show you often unravels that definition of success. You are the pinnacle of millions of years of evolution. Your presence is a miracle. You are surrounded by miracles. Embrace t...

  Schoolhouse in Ripon, WI. Birthplace of the Republican party. I'll be up front. Every lesson taught in a public education classroom is political. Every last blessed one. I cannot even conceive of any possible lesson that isn't planned, housed and implemented with political signification. School itself is a political institution and education has always been a political function with a political purpose, so to suggest that it should be free from political implication is equivalent to saying a professional football game should be free from competition. The very definition of oxymoron.  Let me present a few oversimplified observations:  History classes are selective narrative.  Science classes instruct the "Scientific Method", a particular and limited method of observing and describing the world as well as the descriptions it produces.  English classes and the national tests that go with them reinforce hegemonic linguistic patterns of privilege and power.  G...