In my work with school educators this is the question I ask them to resolve for themselves. What drives you to lead / teach young people and why? What happened to you and why is that important.
I was reminded of the power of that question recently in two quite different ways, which I’ll explain as we go on.
Firstly, its important to share my why, which changes as my life continues. It was for many of my years to treat young people as people – with respect – with hope and humility – not to punish as was done to me by some of my schooling and first years as a teacher – to strap, to hurt , to punish a behaviour. Does that go away – no – but it fades a little as my first grandson, James is soon to turn 2.
While I can I want to bring hope to schools and educators through an equity improvement process called Data Wise from Harvard University – hope for a life filled with possibilities and opportunities for all young people including my grandson.
Experience 1: I was in a school recently visiting a trainee teacher who talked about wanting to design a few lesson around students misunderstandings about part number or fractions that she had found. Firstly it was unusual to hear that language (misunderstandings) and mathematical knowledge in a young trainee teacher and I wanted to know her background as I suspected a deeper why in her. Well, its not my story to tell but there was a deeper connection to hope from her past – maybe with her permission she may choose to share that sometime to a wider audience.
Experience 2: I came across a new film “Radical” to be released later this year about a teacher who saw hope in young people. The film is in Spanish with English subtitles but from the short clip below I feel one worth watching
So, in summary what’s your why t0 care to share?
