Cycle Three Concluding Post: Of Guardians and Dreamkeepers

Hi everyone, thank you again for your work in cycle three. I very much enjoyed reading your posts. 

While I have to promise you that my intention was not to dismay or dishearten you, I feel that, in some cases, that is what I did. If so, let me say I am sorry. And let me remind you that as teachers, one of our primary responsibilities is to preserve hope--for our profession, for our children, and for our society. We are, as Gloria Ladson-Billings says, “the dreamkeepers.”

Nothing in the world has a singular cause--the day of thinking about the world as a pool table is, hopefully, over (well, our politicians seem to forget that sometimes). Striking Ball A in the hopes that it will get Ball B into the corner pocket--well, the logic maybe works for billiards, but not for educating children. 

We live in a world where each event has multiple causes, as well as multiple effects, some intended, others unforeseen. We also live in a world of feedback loops. Not only are there multiple causes for every event, but the event itself evolves in response to the changing conditions around it. 

Stock markets rise in Wall Street not just because of objective economic conditions, but also because the markets in Tokyo and London rose that day as well. In fact, the stock market will sometimes increase because of a survey that consumers are feeling more confident--and that increase in the market will itself, perhaps, increase consumer confidence even more! We live in an interconnected world.

My reason for this little digression is this? 

Do you know one of the major influences on the Finnish educational system of today?

Yes, the United States.

Our country has a tradition of holistic, child-centered education that we can be proud of. I was reminded of this last night, when I entered the East Lansing Public Library, and saw the plaque stating that the library was founded by members of the East Lansing Child Study Group. Yes, people used to get together and talk about child development! The 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s were a time of great experimentalism in education in our country. Dewey was central, but more important were the teachers--many of them early childhood and elementary educators--who led the way. 

Our schools--with their wood shops, home economics classrooms, playgrounds, gymnasiums, theaters, studios, stadiums and student government councils--were centers of active community life. Indeed, so much so, that for many small towns, the school was the center of the larger community itself! Even in the world’s wealthiest nations, few have made of their schools what we have of ours. 

I think it is helpful to remind ourselves of this, and to take pride in those who went before us. 

When Dewey spoke of a common spirit to animate the schools, I think he meant this: “Only by being true to the full growth of all the individuals who make it up, can society by any chance be true to itself.”

Our schools used to provide lots of venues through which students could participate, demonstrate excellence, and give back to the good of a community. They were showcases of virtue. Virtue, in its Greek roots, refers back to excellence, in its many forms. As we watch the Olympics, we should be quickly reminded of that. 

It is a beautiful thing to watch young people finding themselves through finding their own unique form of virtue--excellence. As teachers, we  are guardians of a place where that excellence is recognized, honed and put to good use. That is our true vocation, though the public currently needs reminding of that.

Dewey lived a long life. As a child, he traveled from his home in Vermont to Virginia, to see his dad, who was fighting in the Civil War. He almost certainly witnessed the carnage of that horrific event. Later, living in Chicago, and then New York, he was witness to the pain and dislocation of immigrant families and displaced farm laborers, living in settlements, adapting to new ways of living, in a new environment.

Yet despite it all, he remained optimistic. He believed that schools could be sites where the good things in our communities could be leveraged so as to critique and improve those things that are bad. He believed that schools should be safe places, but not places hermetically sealed off from the world around them.

It is my hope that the past can provide some clue about the way in which we might move forward, making of our society one that is “worthy, lovely, and harmonious.” 

Thank you for your work in this course! I wish you a wonderful rest of the summer. Please be in touch if I can ever be of assistance to you. If you plan on coming in for graduation at some point, I hope  you will let me take you out for lunch!