After years of prepping for the most important day of school, the first day, I came up with a phrase you, the reader, will come across numerous times: "failure is the condiment for the flavor of success."
I tell any teacher willing to listen that the first day is imperative as far as standard impressions are made and, in general, what the expectations would be.
My eloquence to quote, vastly lacking by my own estimates, pale in comparison to most. The reader throughout this book will find many quotes, as appropriate as I deemed necessary and proper. Proper credit has been given to acknowledge those in history who have provided me with empowerment and inspiration for all the students to understand.
Hoping that after thirteen years of AP world history teaching, the challenges should be greater than the regular class: supplying the above quote should have a more emphatic sense of the direction we were about to head. The right to fail, to try, and try again, if necessary, using various techniques and insights offered should provide the support these students would so desperately deserve. Nothing of value comes easy; it comes with struggle--experiencing the wrong to get it right.
"No student left behind" is the credo for most public schools in the state. This is a more than subtle way of sending the message to all who educate our young today. As subtly is their forte this quote leads to an assumption that all students should be passed! Teachers become less stringent toward the academics: the reason they were hired in the first place! The personal baggage, which I allude to in the book, can be infectious for both teacher and student. I estimate that stress is all-consuming and deserves to be addressed, rather than allowing it to become all-consuming, much like the Leviathan.
An autonomous teacher appears to be headed to the endangered species list. I lived to tell the tale. Teachers are dropping out like flies: those who refuse the autotron demands placed upon them by their higher-ups, those who fail to assist students in their most vital needs--to know. Like Diogenes, good teachers shine their lamp to look for a willing student.
I am a passionate man. This I admitted to as a fault when asked, in my interview for the educational position/job, What are your shortcomings as a teacher? I admitted that I care too much. This can be a deterrent.
Maybe, if I could take literary license from Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), I can be summed up as follows:
I'm somebody. Who are you?
Are you somebody, too?
Then there's a pair of us--don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
Baggage / being close-minded / being self-important / being self-righteous/ nay-saying / being oblivious to moral obligation / utilized or brutalized into acceptance and ever popular entitlement expectations--this is this arrogance of ignorance.
