"We Are All Part Of The Puzzle"
Jim Burke is a high school English teacher in California who is a prolific writer, networker and doer. In addition to his sixteen years of teaching experience, Jim has written several books and founded one of the most active Ning groups, English Companion, dubbed as the "world's largest English department", and has recently published a new book. Read more about Jim and his work below.
A Piece Of The Puzzle
By Jim Burke
A colleague of mine often says, when someone wants to claim responsibility for changing the life of a given student, that "we are all part of the puzzle." At first, I admit, I wanted to resist this. After all, isn't it a more rewarding story to place ourselves at the center of the narrative of that student's life? Hold ourselves up, even if only in our imagination, as heroic? Be Jaime Escalente? Erin Gruwell?
The truth of her comment about being "a piece of the puzzle" becomes more evident to me as time passes. You realize that each kid needs different things at different times from different