Teacher Tom: We Will Win When We Love

Teacher Tom: We Will Win When We Love

We Will Win When We Love

Psychologist Carl Jung wrote, "Where love rules there is not a will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking." This, I think, is an important thing upon which modern educators in general, and early childhood educators in particular, could stand to meditate.

I strive to place love at the center of my practice, as I know is true of most of my colleagues. We genuinely love the children we teach and they love us. I've witnessed this to be widely true wherever I've visited. It's perhaps our greatest reward (because it sure isn't financial). When it goes as it should, we spend our days loving and being loved, swimming in it, breathing it. Our job is to keep them safe and to otherwise simply be there, loving them and helping them as they figure out how to connect with, to love, more people. This is the foundation of not just all learning, but all living in the fullest sense of the word.

When I look at our habitual idea of schooling, I see a lot of CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: We Will Win When We Love

Big Education Ape: Teacher Tom: Teacher Tom's Play Summit is Here: Together, Let's Turn This World Around - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2021/05/teacher-tom-teacher-toms-play-summit-is.html

CURMUDGUCATION: The Book Love Foundation

CURMUDGUCATION: The Book Love Foundation

The Book Love Foundation

 Penny Kittle teaches freshman composition at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire and has logged a few decades in public school as a reading teacher and literacy coach. She's picked up some NCTE awards, written some books, and generally done pretty well professionally. But for my money, one of the coolest things she has done starts with this story:

I stood in a most perfect bookstore in the Memphis airport one evening smelling the strong scent of Bar-B-Q that permeates the place as I waited for my flight.
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Under maple bookshelves lit softly by spotlights, I came upon a collection of animal books, not just The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein and A Dog’s Purpose by Bruce Cameron, but Cassius: The True Story of a Courageous Police Dog by Gordon Thorburn, which explores the scenting capabilities of police dogs that help solve crimes.

There were books about training birds, the history of zoos, and endangered species. I could imagine current students who would enjoy each title. This was an intriguing collection placed directly across from classics recommended by those who work in the store. There was a shelf of new fiction, one of psychology and self-discovery, and a section for business books. The store went on and on. You know: a book for anyone who might wander through this place. It’s hard not to pick lovely books up, hard not to stuff my suitcase even fuller. (I did, in fact.)
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But I also twirled around the room for a moment and imagined clearing out the center shelves in CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: The Book Love Foundation

From Dress Codes to Pornography: Miseducating Children on Love and Sex – radical eyes for equity

From Dress Codes to Pornography: Miseducating Children on Love and Sex – radical eyes for equity

From Dress Codes to Pornography: Miseducating Children on Love and Sex

“My first introduction to porn was in middle school watching the ‘scrambled channel’ to catch the few split seconds when the static morphed into a bare butt thrusting,” explains Tracy Clark-Flory, a journalist covering the sex industry, adding: “Officially, I thought of watching porn less as entertainment than instruction, an investigation into men’s desire more than my own.”

Want Me, by Tracy Clark-Flory

Clark-Flory notes that her experience is “typical” for young women, and her evolving lessons around pornography are powerfully framed as she further examines her earliest lessons:

It goes without saying: as I was growing up, no one had talked to me about the sexual politics of power, performance and perspective. No one – not my parents, not my sex ed classes, not the writers of glossy magazine sex advice – had bothered to go beyond basic mechanics and technique. A true sexual education has less to do with diagrams of the human reproductive system than with understanding another organ: the brain.

MY PORN LIFE: WHAT MY YEARS AS A SEX WRITER TAUGHT ME ABOUT MY DESIRES

Addressing a controversy around the backstory of an American Girl doll with lesbian aunts, James Finn confronts how children are the “big losers” in the CONTINUE READING: 

NANCY BAILEY: 26 Reasons to Love Teachers During the Pandemic

26 Reasons to Love Teachers During the Pandemic

26 Reasons to Love Teachers During the Pandemic

Let teachers know how much they’re cared for on Valentine’s Day! Their mental health is important during this troubling time, so reach out and say something kind. No matter what anyone thinks about school reopenings it’s important to express love and appreciation for all that teachers do and have done during the pandemic.

While Covid-19 has been a tragedy and schooling is a concern for parents, another tragedy is unfolding in this country. It’s the loss of qualified, experienced teachers. The most important person in a child’s life next to their parents and family is their teacher.

Here are 26 examples pulled from social media and through discussions with teachers during this trying time. They’re in no particular order and provide a small example of what all teachers do. But they show a beautiful profession and teachers who always make it so, especially during Covid-19. Feel free to share your story or provide additional examples of the good that teachers do.

1. Teachers take food and supplies to students. Here they rode school buses 150 miles a day traversing gravel and dirt roads to hand out food and homework to children.
2. Teaching in frigid weather outside or in chilly rooms with windows open must not be easy, but here teachers mean to keep students safe and protest unsafe school reopening plans.
3. These teachers make home visits where they connect with families and children. 
4. Some teachers show up for in-person schooling even though they’re pregnant. CONTINUE READING: 26 Reasons to Love Teachers During the Pandemic