You know what quote I hate most of all?
...or something because honestly I stopped listening since I had no clue what it had to do with me saying that I couldn't rearrange my schedule to fit in that one class since Monday was a holiday and a teacher missed prep time.
Anyway.
The moral of the story (I guess?) was essentially that phrase, and you know, I just don't see the world that way at all.
What's wrong with me going to scout out that fruit on my own and bringing some back? I can tell you where it is, if there was a lot of it, what dangers you find on the way. The quote naturally assumes the worst about people - that I'm going to hoard all the fruit (or whatever I find by going fast and alone).
False. I've gone fast and alone on things all my life and what makes me a great teacher is that I bring whatever I find back to the group to help take everyone farther. It's not mutually exclusive. Some people cannot go with the group, and let's be honest - without scouts to go fast and far alone, would humanity have survived this long? No.
And let's talk about me as a runner for a moment. I. Am. SLOW. Okay, maybe not compared to you, but when I run with my girls, up a hill, I am the weakest link. Could they run faster without me? Yep. Could I run farther without them? Absolutely. I'm stoked to run an ultramarathon for my 40th birthday. They're like, "We could maybe cheer?"
I guess this is just another piece of my recent wrath about teacher shaming by other teachers. I have a million drafts of me ranting and raving about how we are never going to be better or more respected if we don't stop making pretty picture quotes of garbage like that and "whoever's doing the talking's doing the learning," and whatever else and calling them motivational.
They're not.
Teaching is too hard and too complex to be made into a graphic. It can't be summarized in a trite little quote. Your trite quote isn't my trite quote anyway. And that's fine. We. Are. Different. People. That's what makes education today so strong: all the different ideas and techniques and backgrounds that we have. There's not one way to do it right, just like there's not one type of student in our classes or one type of class that we have. We are professionals and as such, we need to continue to educate ourselves in what's going on - not because it's a magic cure for our classroom woes, but because we can keep adding to the richness of our own right way.
And who do we learn it from? The scouts. The people who write the books and present at the conferences and tweet the tweets are the ones who go fast and alone and bring it back to share with the group.
So we CAN go further.
Together.
< /rant >
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.The most trouble I've ever been in with my principal got me told this long story about how these children in Africa found some fruit and they could either all go together to the fruit or one could go alone...
...or something because honestly I stopped listening since I had no clue what it had to do with me saying that I couldn't rearrange my schedule to fit in that one class since Monday was a holiday and a teacher missed prep time.
Anyway.
The moral of the story (I guess?) was essentially that phrase, and you know, I just don't see the world that way at all.
What's wrong with me going to scout out that fruit on my own and bringing some back? I can tell you where it is, if there was a lot of it, what dangers you find on the way. The quote naturally assumes the worst about people - that I'm going to hoard all the fruit (or whatever I find by going fast and alone).
False. I've gone fast and alone on things all my life and what makes me a great teacher is that I bring whatever I find back to the group to help take everyone farther. It's not mutually exclusive. Some people cannot go with the group, and let's be honest - without scouts to go fast and far alone, would humanity have survived this long? No.
And let's talk about me as a runner for a moment. I. Am. SLOW. Okay, maybe not compared to you, but when I run with my girls, up a hill, I am the weakest link. Could they run faster without me? Yep. Could I run farther without them? Absolutely. I'm stoked to run an ultramarathon for my 40th birthday. They're like, "We could maybe cheer?"
I guess this is just another piece of my recent wrath about teacher shaming by other teachers. I have a million drafts of me ranting and raving about how we are never going to be better or more respected if we don't stop making pretty picture quotes of garbage like that and "whoever's doing the talking's doing the learning," and whatever else and calling them motivational.
They're not.
Teaching is too hard and too complex to be made into a graphic. It can't be summarized in a trite little quote. Your trite quote isn't my trite quote anyway. And that's fine. We. Are. Different. People. That's what makes education today so strong: all the different ideas and techniques and backgrounds that we have. There's not one way to do it right, just like there's not one type of student in our classes or one type of class that we have. We are professionals and as such, we need to continue to educate ourselves in what's going on - not because it's a magic cure for our classroom woes, but because we can keep adding to the richness of our own right way.
And who do we learn it from? The scouts. The people who write the books and present at the conferences and tweet the tweets are the ones who go fast and alone and bring it back to share with the group.
So we CAN go further.
Together.
< /rant >
Preach.
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