A Public School Teacher and Student Discuss Democratic Education
This is a dialogue between Leigh Pourciau, an educator at a public middle school and blogger at www.bestinclassblog.blogspot.com, and Anna Baker, a rising senior in a public high school. Both live in the Jackson, Mississippi, metro area. Anna’s sister, Stacy, is a teacher; Anna has considered becoming one, too, but is deterred by the current system. It wasn’t the first time a left-brained colleague had come to me with such a request. Stacy, the pragmatic and exceptional science teacher from the 7th grade hall, sent me a Facebook message, “If you don’t mind, I may refer my little sister, Anna, to you…She is considering education, but is losing faith in our current system. She reminds me a lot of you…I’m a bit too pragmatic to advise her, I think!” As my school’s resident, right-brained, rabble-rouser, my colleagues and friends occasionally send me the free-spirited question-askers that remind them of me.
I had no way of knowing then that my interaction with Stacy’s sister would convict me in a way that no professional development ever had. That she would make me want to break apart my current teaching philosophy