On her blog, Katie Ross posted about her reactions to our reading assignment this week. In part, she said,
"The statement which Benjamin Zander states at the beginning of The Art of Possibility he
talks about two salesmen going off to sell shoes in Africa, this is a
fantastic example of how teachers should think of their teaching
opportunities. You see, in his story he states that one of the salesmen
sent word back home that the idea of shoes is hopeless because no one
there wears shoes, but the other salesman sent a more optimistic letter
back full of hope stating that he has the opportunity to get people to
start wearing shoes. In the classroom we have to think the same way
about our students. We should not focus on the fact that we have a large
group of students who do not want to learn; rather we should focus on
the possibility of finding new ways to get the students more excited
about learning. This is what the EMDT program has taught me over the
past 11 months. We have been given the tools to sell shoes to the
shoeless, an amazing opportunity to teach those who have not yet
discovered the joy of learning."
Katie, you hit the nail on the head! We have been given the tools to sell shoes to the shoeless!! In fact, when I first read that paragraph I thought about some of my fellow teachers who only want to complain that kids these days are somehow less able to learn than kids in the past. Because they want to use video, music, computers, technology...those same teachers label them as lazy, or somehow less than previous generations. I'm so proud to be part of a group that can see the shoeless for who they are! Not more, not less...just people waiting for us to come provide the shoes for them to journey through life in!
No comments:
Post a Comment