Teacher Manifesto

This is as simple as I can say what needs saying in our times, from a teacher’s point of view:

 

                                                     TEACHER MANIFESTO

 

1.     Every child, without exception, is worthy of being welcomed, seen, valued and loved.

 

2.     Every child comes to earth with a particular gifted genius that the world needs to advance knowledge, enlarge compassion, bring beauty and promote justice. 

 

3.     We all carry both the capacity for cruelty and kindness, brutality and beauty, ignorance and intelligence..

 

4.      It is therefore the responsibility—and the pleasure—of every individual, family, school, church, neighborhood, nation, electronic culture, artistic culture, ethical culture, corporate culture, religious culture, to organize itself around the practices that nurture and nourish our better selves, to stop the harm of hurtful habits and toxic narratives. 

 

5.     All leaders, followers, enablers, complicitly silent citizens who model the opposite of the above are causing immeasurable harm and need to be firmly resisted. Any behavior not tolerated in kindergarten should not be tolerated in government.

 

6.     Every act of practicing the above is a form of resistance, helping to drive out lies with truth, the dark with the light, the evil with the good, the ugliness with the beauty, ignorance with education, the toxic practices with the tonic ones. 

 

7.     We can do all of the above work better together. 

 

—   Submitted by Doug Goodkin, a lifelong teacher and American citizen

     PS: Like the children in the photo, we all know the answer. Now we just have to live it.

            For our sake and theirs.