Think like a principal
“Feisty kids.”
By the time Debbie Meier concludes her keynote address, to a group of teachers, she is telling them, to be feisty, too. Historically, schools are about keeping order and discipline, kids behaving, teachers keeping them in line. But Meier’s feisty school is different––needed now more than ever.
When classrooms are placid, efficient, orderly, quiet––artificial at best––things appear fine. Teachers are seen as doing things right. But what is happening? In students’ minds? In their hearts? And in the teachers? Learning is absent. Memories are not formed.
And were we to adopt Meier’s “feisty kids” paradigm in our lives, how would we act?
~ ~ ~
Meier advocates, “The primary purpose of the public school is to nourish citizens who will know that they have choices, and who will exercise those choices.“ Her guidance enables “the leeway to make important judgments, and the freedom to make mistakes,” essential for an education.
As I articulated in my previous entry, I worked in open classrooms in which students and teachers had agency. Having choices was essential. (See chapters 7-15 in my classroom memoir, Teacher in the Rye: Doing It My Way.)
When you look back, did your education nourish you to became an active citizen? Did you think your school prepared you for adjusting to today’s complex, digitally driven world?
If you agree, as Meier implores, that schools should educate for active citizenship, what can you do about it? What is the responsibility of those of us not in schools to ensure that school educate and not indoctrinate, not ban books and dismiss history? If it is not your fight, then whose is it?
What if you decide to stay on the sidelines?
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forward.” (Kierkegaard)
I write to bring ideas and methods from my life as a teacher in the latter half of the 20th century to help teachers and the public to “live forward” in this century. My latest book, Teacher in the Rye: Doing It My Way is available on Amazon. And I welcome comments here on my Substack or by email at frankthoms3@gmail.com.
