Read These: The Battles We Need to Fight

The teaching profession is embattled on many fronts; fighting with our students shouldn’t have to be one of them. Jose Vilson’s important take on that point, When Teachers and Students Fight is something everyone should read and consider. He notes:

We still have school environments that, despite some adults’ best efforts, feel unsafe, hostile, dangerous. The solution, as far as I can tell, isn’t more police officers or security.

It’s the proactive conditions we create that assure a high sense of respect and responsibility. This might be easier if the students already have a certain sense of responsibility or structure they come in with, but it’s disorienting to know that we can’t teach all of our children self-empowerment and healthy life habits.

On another battlefront, educators and students alike are still fighting the effects of segregation and poverty in our public schools. Decades of resisting true integration and equity have been like an albatross on the progress of education in the United States. I reflect on that at in a guest blog with Elaine Weiss over at Bill Moyers’ and Company.

Join the conversations; then act accordingly.