Back to class: the tightrope teachers must walk
Flag flies at half staff in Newtown. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
From the Exasperated Teacher blog is a post about returning to class on Monday, the first day back to school after the killings of 20 children and six adults at a Newtown, Connecticut school on Friday. Exasperated Teachers writes anonymously and offers this by way of biography: “Urban-based teacher. Adore my students, admire my colleagues. Frustrated by well-meaning (or not) educational interlopers.”
Here’s part of the post (you can see the whole thing here):
…. I will need to fully focus on my students’ emotional well-being and nurture them through this tragedy.
A tightrope, that is what I will walk: needing to stress the importance of safety drills without frightening the kids; growing compassion without instilling depression; engendering political action without taking sides.
I will give them a chance to journal and draw, talk and cry.
I will give them the opportunity to angrily discuss how the daily violence in their own community is often ignored by the media.
The real problem(s)
This was written by George Wood, superintendent and secondary school principal at the Federal Hocking Local School District in Stewart, Ohio. He is also the executive director of the Forum for Education and Democracyand chair of the board for the Coalition of Essential Schools.
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