Hey, kids, get a life!

What do you want?
What do you need?

If you cannot answer both (or even either) you should not be teaching.

If you do not know what you need, you will tell children they need what others want to sell to them.
If you do not know what you want, you will teach children to want what others desire from them.

Mr. Duncan thinks he knows what your child needs.

I know that I do not want my life defined in terms of the global economy, but our Federal government insists that creating "workers" to compete in the "global economy" is the major purpose of public education. I have kids who can parrot the formula for photosynthesis yet have no idea what it takes to grow a bean plant.

Turns out you do not need a cell phone. You do not need to wear Nikes. You do not need to know quadratic equations. You do not need to be compliant.

What you do need is safe shelter, sustenance, and love. I have kids coming to school who lack one or more of those on any given day.

Did what you teach today help a child better build a life here in town? Can she fix a broken lamp, grow a small garden, slaughter a fish? Is she any less dependent on the adults around her than she was yesterday?

From last year's flowerheads come this year's basil.

Kids don't need schooling, they need living....