Comments on: Seed Time

By: Mike parent

Mike parent — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:45:12 +0000

Doug,

As always, your post was provoking. I am especially struck by the line, “… avoid busying ourselves with problems that are too big, too abstract, too intractable, and fundamentally impossible to tackle”. As administrator, I am too often caught up in my dreams (what could be if only, what should be if only) and not focused enough on the reality and the things that I can take care of. Many times, the ideas and dreams I have rely on a complete change of the entire system - something I cannot control.

Much like the harvester, we might be better off planting seeds where we can when the season is right, tending to the seeds so they bear plentiful fruit, and planting anew when the crops are ready for consumption by the masses. Thank you again for your assistance in clearing my mind and giving focus. My school will appreciate it too.

By: Mark Ahlness

Mark Ahlness — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 07:34:19 +0000

Doug,
In all this championing of kids and classroom, it sounds like some us us just want to curl up in a corner in our safe classroom shells and kiss the educational system and its problems good-bye. Not so, of course. Looking forward to more focused passions in 2008… yikes, that sounds like a resolution! Happy New Year - Mark

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 19:49:47 +0000

Wonderful, thank you, This is a good time to consider these thoughts. It can be so easy to jump back into the new year with an idea to “fix” everything - why the big emphasis to make a big change? I don’t think the big fix can be all that helpful to consider.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

By: Graham Wegner

Graham Wegner — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 12:23:25 +0000

Doug, you say, “I’ve been thinking lately that my frustrations in the classroom are nothing more than that. They’re my frustrations, and my problems.” Except when some mug from the bottom end of the globe contacts you for a “Global Project” and heaps on you with a new bunch of problems!! Seriously, you are right in terms of that many of us in our classrooms can set the tone, set the timetable, rewrite the curriculum, enjoy the autonomy and negotiate the journey with the students that will be their unique experience. I do have enough confidence in my own abilities and experience, and know that I am happy to push some boundaries out as I go that my new class of 2008 will be memorable for them in a whole bunch of ways that I haven’t even begun to figure out. I wrote back on Mark’s blog that we are all “agents of change” in some way - just some of us are choosing smaller and more intimate stages to enact that change. That’s why I still smile every time I read James Farmer’s blog because of his blog’s great title “Incorporated Subversion”. Good teaching is nothing if not a subversive profession.