Showing posts with label Bob Marley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bob Marley. Show all posts

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Teaching What Matters

Written three years ago, but never posted.
Seems like a good time for it.

 
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery,
None but ourselves can free our minds.


We're at that point now.
We have been there once or twice before in my lifetime. 



I know what fresh bread baked from wheat ground by my hands tastes like.
I know what blueberries off an early August bush taste like.
I know what wild dolphins sound like while I loll underwater in the Delaware Bay.
I know the moment of inevitability as I raise a stone above the eyes of a fish writhing under my hands.
I want to share this.

I know death of loved ones.
I know love.
I know fear in the eyes of a parent.
I know the look when a parent first learns her child is dead.
I know redemption.
I want to share this.


Time for us to stop looking at the one next to us, seeing what he will do.

Time to stop acting in fear.
We're lost, and knowing this liberates us.

Do what's right by your students, by their parents, by your town.
If we've lost the battle for democracy, and it's possible we may have, live well.

The children are watching us--we can, by our actions, give them faith that things will change.





Redemption.






"Blame" the blueberries I picked just a few moments ago.