Pedagogue (n.): from Greek origin; referring to a slave chosen to walk the master’s child to school.
I am a teacher. I am not a pedagogue. I am not pedantic. I am no slave. I don’t walk children to school. I am the school. I am not standardized. I am extraordinary. I am not limited to the past nor the present. I shape the future, planting questions of hope and curiosity that grow and take root and begin to fill the vast horizon, to stand strong and flourish and not be broken by the winds that come and go.
I transcend color, but I am not colorblind. My palette is varietal and mixed and ready to be applied.
For me, standards are the pedestrian level of competence that equalize, minimize, measure the immeasurable worth of a human soul. Does anyone strive to be average? To be standard? Does a nine-year-old say, “I want to be normal, just like all the rest”? Does a twelve-year-old say, “That standardized test really changed my life”? Only when they’ve been lulled into submission or trained like fleas not to jump any higher. It might take years, but Education manages to anesthetize the best and the brightest. A transformation that typically alters the smiling faces of elementary schoolchildren to the bored, broken scowls of teens slumped over desks in high school. No more ears and eyes wide open to playful realities. No more songs and screams during recess. No more pure joy. Now hoodies cover heads of dead imagination and ears are plugged to drown out the boredom of days turned into years of compulsory Average Daily Attendance.
My standards rise above the norm and aim for the impossible because, according to Nelson Mandela, many things are impossible – until they are done.
I don’t train students to do what’s right. I challenge students to explore what’s universally true, what’s sublimely gorgeous, what’s utterly false. I invite them on a journey where the destination begins when you step off the path. We learn what’s human in an inhuman world, cultivating laughter and tears like the Greeks through catharsis and tales of bad decisions that lead to all kinds of painful growing: how not to be static in our presently evolving History, how to be amazed by Science and Athletics and Politics and Mathematics; how to listen to the voices of struggle that sometimes shout, oftentimes whisper through the scattered community of the dispossessed.
I come from the great tradition of all teachers come before me. This is my standard and my constant jab of shortcomings and flaws. I travel the path forged by Buddha and Jesus, Socrates and Mrs. Waddell – my kindergarten teacher who called me Donald and taught me how to square dance, finger paint, read Dr. Seuss, and learn what to do when others were mean. I am the combination of all of that and all these people, and all of the authors I’ve ever read, and all of the mistakes I’ve ever made, the embarrassments and the failures, the good days and gold stars, the bad haircut days, and the days when I crossed the stage and donned my tassel and cap. I am the blood of those who lived before me. I am the voice of those who are dead and silent and those who have been put away and silenced. May my voice someday inspire others to carry on the song, to rise above the common din in harmony and supreme self-confidence.
No, I am not a pedagogue. I don’t walk the master’s child to school. The master’s child can walk him or herself to me. My doors are wide open, as are my arms. But when you enter, please be ready. I raised my standards a long time ago and my expectations are clear: learning is all-consuming. It is forever. The entrance comes intuitively, the exit comes when the chrysalis releases you.
Utopian Cow 