helping students come into their power

 

what's the right "take" on learning?

at its heart, our school believes in the student,

we believe that every student can be awake, and assertive,

that each can be an active, positive decision-maker

 who wants to do what is best,

who has a power within that just needs to be released,

at odds with such an optimistic take on the learner

is the opposing view of student as easily delinquent,

one who needs the teacher as police,

the teacher as the one to force right action,

to penalize wrong action,

to control the whole process,

when asked for roses and thorns of the day,

students often answer that their thorn is homework,

any requirement to be somewhere, to do something,

for to say "yes" to impulse is always attractive,

yet mountains cannot be climbed by sitting still,

there's pride in a job well done, 

though part of us didn't want to do the job,

as a teacher, I know the journey forward is not easy,

not just the flipping of a switch and all runs smoothly,

yet to me, each assertion of control by the teacher

should be only a means to an end

of the teacher becoming more dispensable,

as each student finds more control of their own learning,

it's like a game within which each student can win

as long as the rules are followed,

rules that help control the choice away from tempting dissolution,

and that reward each effort forward,

which take on what is more central to the student's

coming into their power should be followed?

I have devoted my life and career into my optimistic take on it all,

despite the glitches that culture and self-will

so often throw at our optimism,

once the student is awake to who they really are,

and allowed the freedom to follow the best within them,

we, as teachers, can be helpers on the journey,

gentle guides as to paths that might be followed,

supportive audience to what the learner creates and expresses,

secondary companions to the primal force the learner can be.

by Henry H. Walker

November 1, ‘23