You survive as a teacher because, no matter what, you are able to retain what you hold most dear about being a teacher.
If you can also make yourself and your students feel comfortable within an unnatural instructional environment loaded with developmentally inappropriate goals and objectives, an environment that you would never have created on your own— then you can insure your survival.
For the short term.
In your heart of hearts— for the long term— you know that you are being required to conduct too much instruction which is, on the whole, no good for your children.
So where do you go for educational leadership with pedagogical questions?
When you ask, “How is this particular practice good for our developing children?,” you want an answer coming from an educator’s comprehension of child development, and not a politician’s assessment of the needs of the global economy.
Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, determines the learning environment for 1,100,000 school children. He is the living prototype for numbers-driven, business-model, blame-the-teachers, numbers-driven educational “reformers.”
In every school district in every state, teachers are being coerced and bribed to participate in the nation’s POLITICAL agenda for our students— which is driven by the BUSINESS agenda for our students.
The PEDAGOGICAL agenda for our students, if set by the nation’s teachers, would grow the next generation of Americans into healthy, well-rounded, well-informed, thoughtful and heartfelt team players.
Our educational decision-makers do not know children.
They have little idea of how children learn.
They have little knowledge or experience of what it takes to teach children in today’s classrooms.
Wouldn’t you think it would make sense for the school establishment to align our national educational policy and dollars to solid pedagogy and child psychology?
Present practice is a radical departure from traditional practices.
Top-down mandates and scripts routinely violate the psychology, the physiology, and the brain science of child development.
“Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we have strip-mined the earth— for a particular commodity.”
Before committing yourself to Guerrilla Teaching, return to THE SOURCE that called you into teaching in the first place. From the spirit of that initial inspiration, get a feeling for whether now is the right time to re-commit yourself to teaching as your life’s Work. Are you still able to be the teacher you came into teaching to be?
As you see fit, you can start applying GUERRILLA PRINCIPLES immediately to your daily lesson plans and school day.
GUERRILLA PRINCIPLES can inform your participation during faculty meetings and at professional development sessions.
Most importantly, being a Guerrilla Teacher can positively affect your attitude every day you go to school.
From now on, you are empowered to act from the nobility of your Purpose with children.
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