What now? | Deborah Meier on Education

What now? | Deborah Meier on Education:

What now?

What few months we’ve been through. No point in rehearsing all the stages I have gone through. But since I am incapable of not being an optimist, even though I know better, I have solved it in this way: I had been thinking that if I made it for five more years I would probably see a great-grandchild or two born. Worth doing. But now I have decided to try to live 12 more years (three electoral presidential cycles) so I can see the pendulum swing and take some healthy breaths before I call it quits. I do envy those much younger for having more time to do this. And, of course, it means that we all, including me, cannot spend too much time grieving and complaining. We do always need smart analyses, thoughtful historical perspectives, etc. (We need, for example, to remember that less than ¼ of all potential voters voted for Trump, and half of the eligible voters did not or could not vote at all.) But we also need motion—action—face-to-face as well as all other ways. We need to bury—or put on the back burner—as many differences on our side that we can tolerate (and which smart strategy suggests doing). We need to build bridges: we need the kind of listening skills that good educator’s work rests on. A good classroom is always building bridges between what different people think—even in a math class. Listening to and taking seriously the absurd, the offensive, and the illogical ideas as I tried to do in kindergarten classes was not a frill. There was always a nugget of truth, an insight that still informs me, and What now? | Deborah Meier on Education: