History Rises Again
Curtis Wilkie’s AUG. 12, 2014 NYT column entitled, The South’s Lesson for the Tea Party provides a lesson for all of us. History is the lesson. Wilkie examines the rise and strength of the Tea Party in the south which many of us simply see as a 21st century event provoked by the Koch brothers and anti Obama sentiment. He depicts it, as I do, as another cycle of “nativism and populism” that reared
STOP GRITTING YOUR TEETH WHEN YOU HEAR “GRIT”
There is nothing wrong with GRIT.
Why do we have such a knee jerk reaction to a word when the wrong people usurp it?
Isn’t true grit is a characteristic we need to fight back against these interlopers? We need to take back that word just as we need to take back other words and phrases like assessment, challenging, and critical thinking.
So I propose we make a list of what True Grit really is.
Please add to these examples:
True Grit is the poor kid from the streets of Philly who fights through the stigma of doing well in school and the resulting beat downs to succeed in school, becomes the first in his family to graduate college and goes back to teach in his own community.
True grit is the student who takes risks by learning how to learn outside the box of the classroom experientially and the school that fosters that method.
True Grit is the teacher who, given the constricting conditions in the school she teaches in takes risks to do what she knows works best for her kids and let the chips fall where they may.
True Grit is the school administrator who tells her staff not to worry about all that APPR crap and to continue to teach to the kids not to the test.
True Grit is the state Regent or Commissioner who says we will not accept the strings to the RTTT and CCSS bribe.
True Grit is the state legislator or congressman, who, regardless of her party affiliation, will not take campaign funds to influence her vote against pubic STOP GRITTING YOUR TEETH WHEN YOU HEAR “GRIT” | DCGEducator: Doing The Right Thing: