I recently stumbled on a fabulous post titled “Tread Softly” on The Elmo Wallpaper blog. It’s a must read for anyone who cares about kids.
As a teacher, and not a parent, I sometimes forget how it must be for parents sending their child off to school each day. Depending on the child and the child’s teacher, I’m sure it’s a different experience for all parents. I believe that all parents only want what’s best for their children. So what is “what’s best”? With so much talk about standards, assessments, accountability, merit pay, Race to the Top, etc., etc. – it’s easy to become caught up in the pressures and frustrations of teaching, and to forget about the lives and futures we are responsible for nurturing. Of course it’s critical for us to teach children to be readers, writers, mathematicians, scientists, and historians, questioners, wonderers and explorers. But isn’t it also up to us to create an environment where children are listened to, respected, free to dream, make mistakes, learn about what matters to them and to discover the world in which we live?
As Yeats wrote,
I have spread my dreams beneath your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
I want to remember this and carry it into my classroom every day, because the children we teach each day do spread their dreams beneath our feet. And as the author of the blog post wrote, don’t we really want our children to “live fully and in a world that lets them make mistakes and be themselves, even if it is sometimes quirky, annoying, or inconvenient.”?
Thank you, Katie, for reading my blog and for this post! I am so glad it reached you. I can’t wait to get a chance to read your blog too. I wish you were teaching my children.