A Message for ALL Beginning Teachers
Since you are a beginning teacher, I’d like to talk to you about classroom management and corporal punishment.
You know what they say! Spare the rod and spoil the child!
I’m only kidding.
I’d really like to talk to you about justice and the new technological canvas.
The world has sped up. It’s forever changed.
Most of us now live in a world of memes, 140 character tweets, almost instantaneous news alerts, Facebook status updates, snapchats and Instagram photos of your friends’ latest meal.
We are now living in a world of #FakeNews written by teenagers in Eastern Europe and distributed by bots design by foreign governments.
We live in a world of #AlternativeFacts and reality show styled public policy.
We must now sort through mounds of information and mis-information that arrives each day, each hour.
This speed and brazen falseness of some information in the public discourse has made you more important than ever before.
You are a teacher.
Not “Just a teacher” Please never introduce yourself as “Just a teacher.”
Because each day YOU lay the foundation of democracy.
You are entrusted with a very special responsibility.
You are an expertly trained educator.
An educator that will be respected by your community.
Deservedly respected by families.
Deservedly respected by policymakers (most of the time).
Deservedly respected by education stakeholders.
You have a very sacred responsibility to live up to these expectations.
You have a sacred responsibility to impart knowledge.
But I have to tell you, we must go further.
In the word of DJ Khaled, you’ve got the keys keys keys!
We must train our students to be warriors for democracy and critical thought.
We should encourage our students to not only use their new and social media for leisure, but also to further our democracy.
Encourage your students to:
- Investigate and engage in contemporary issues. A safe space to explore beyond preconceptions. Develop critical discourse based on A Message for ALL Beginning Teachers – Cloaking Inequity:
