Photographers have this process where they take one picture a day, writers too have a similar thing – you can’t be a writer if you don’t write something everyday, you can’t be a photographer if you don’t snap some photos. Day One is the starting point for the ‘education of Tom’. After having spent my life in government all things in education are new to me, whether technology or pedagogy, reflection or lesson planning, its all new. My goal is to become a history and government teacher and I would prefer middle school.
If you want to become a teacher and you have not read “Dream Keepers” by Gloria Ladson-Billings put it on your reading list. If you want to be a better human pick up a book and read. If you want to be an interesting human don’t just pick up any book, be selective, save the garbage for magazines and television. Read “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse or “Conquest of Bread” by Peter Kropotkin. If that tennis shoe company sold books instead of shoes maybe the advertising geniuses would have come up with “Just Read It”. Fall down a few Wikipedia rabbit holes and see what interesting things you will find to read. Read the John Carroll Review, read what your fellow students are writing.
As my Blog progresses and I learn more education “stuff” I hope to focus on the intersection of education and civic responsibility, on areas that may inspire you to teach the difficult things and not just the easy things. To find ways to educate and inspire the next generations to build a better world for themselves. And if you have specific questions about how government, especially local government works and how you might integrate education into the process of creating curious minds sent me a question or pose a problem and lets answer it together.
CitizenTeacherPlanner Education&Technology 