Pages

Search This Blog

Friday, September 18, 2015

Dear Secretary Duncan a message from the Walking Man





Hello Secretary Duncan , my name is Dr. Jesse Patrick Turner, and I am a teacher who occupies the humanity of the spaces I teach. I am inspired by the young voices of those occupying my teaching space. I find magic in the faces I teach. I find hope living in the eyes I teach. I find humanity is a two way street, the more I give the more I recieve. Ralph Waldo Emerson said “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”
Does changing the world begin with reaching one child at a time?
Of course it does!
Does the humanity occupying the space I teach change the world for the children I teach?
Of course it does!
My destiny is not in the hands of the powerful, the wealthy, and the connected. My destiny is in the humanity I bring to teaching?
Secretary Duncan, it is not more rigor, it's more humanity that lifts children up.
It's not testing opening the door to hope.
It's the humanity that occupies the teaching and learning space inside our public schools that opens the door to hope.
Mr. Secretary we don't need new standards!
Mr. Secretary we don't need more rigorous testing!
Mr. Secretary we need more humanity.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jesse Patrick Turner
Director of the Central Connecticut State University Literacy

If you like to know what this Walking Man listened to this morning as he walked over the Avon Mountain, if was the Playing for Change version of John Lennon's "Imagine".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-t2ouOLYYw

Surely we are blessed by the teachers we work with, and the children we teach. Imagine change one child at a time. 

No comments:

Post a Comment