from Demanding Kinder Classrooms Doesn’t Make You a Snowflake

25 August 2017


There’s already enough cruelty in the world. Our students don’t need to be cowering supplicants, adoring acolytes, or uncritical sponges. They don’t need classrooms rooted in the arrogant belief that their experiences and contexts are meaningless, that the only Truth that matters is the one intoned by the unassailable, privileged authority at the front of the classroom. They don’t need to be anything less than their whole, imperfect, uncertain, hopeful, fabulous selves. And if a bit of generosity in our teaching can help them, if a bit more patience with their challenges can make the difference between hard-won success and crushing struggle, then it’s our duty as teachers to provide it. To do otherwise is an inexcusable moral and professional failure.

Daniel Heath Justice

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