48. Spirit Of Defiance
Sometimes you’ve just got to get on with your deeper life endeavor in defiance to all that comes to distract or detract from it!
One of the expressions of that deeper motivation is the fact that you have chosen to help the human race on by becoming an exceptional educator.
Honoring that choice sometimes brings you up against ethical, philosophical or professional dilemmas.
For example, the public school movement towards ‘accountability’ in the classroom accompanied by a compulsory testing regimen enforced with financial leverage attached – has made life unnecessarily difficult for many teachers and administrators.
Keeping to national standards and benchmarks as an informed guideline within a flexible curriculum and teaching methodology is one thing. Enforced compliance to policy mandated by industrial minded administrators at the federal level – is quite another. We have heard so many stories of teachers who have become disheartened and dismayed by these narrow dictates. It is a regression to post WWII education mindset – NOT a step forward.
So…this is a call to teachers not to be put off by policies which are an unfortunate hangover from a bizarre chapter in U.S. government history. This is a call to summon the courage to be undaunted by a trend which effectively mandates mediocrity. Defy it, by being inspired to educate from a deeper motivation!
Find ways to instill hunger for truth and learning; to inspire children to become the world citizens of tomorrow – ethically, environmentally, economically responsible. Our job is NOT to be producing economically viable units to rescue an obsolete socio-economic model. The children I have met want something different!
If you ask the children what their wishes are for themselves, each other and the world – their responses should provide all the fuel and incentive you need!
Defiance is all to do with being true to what you believe. It is all to do with what you cleave to, what you hold by, what you are faithful to, honor and trust! These are vitamins that provide vitality and stability for the future.
So here is to the spirit of defiance!
~PAZ
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