Will, Jason, Sean, Ken, Martin Luther King Jr. and Clair Oglesby
I appreciated the past eight weeks and our exploration of the characteristics of Progressive Education as outlined in the book Loving Learning and although I am leaving that story behind. I also appreciate the opportunity to digress a little in this week’s issue. Overall the theme of today’s story is still at the core of the world of education in which I live, but it is also an opportunity to share some of my recent thoughts, so without further pause, I’ll call this week’s issue of Traversing:
Will, Jason, Sean, Ken, Martin Luther King Jr. and Clair Oglesby
One of my surprise finds during the years of pandemic has been the podcast Smartless. Each week, Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes interview a different person. A fair amount of the show is the three hosts bantering with each other, but interspersed with their back and forth, their guests often provide insightful and profound observations about life.
Recently their guest was someone with whom I have been anonymously following since before I was in high school. I have always appreciated history, especially the history of this country. (As the City of Bridges students know, it was a class entitled: Christian Utopias and Communitarian Movements, which I took my first year at Oberlin College, that steered me away from a Biology major to instead double major in History and Religion.) Even before then the fire of historical curiosity was first lit for me when I was 11 years old and my father and I took a trip to visit American Civil War battle sites for two weeks in the summer.
This curiosity about the American Civil War was fed but a documentary series that was released in 1990. This series created by Ken Burns, altered my life because it told the stories of people and how those people shaped and were shaped by the events, ideas and ideals of a place and time.
(A notable aside, is the Ken Burns lives in Walpole, New Hampshire, just a few miles from the school that I taught at in Acworth, New Hampshire. Walpole is a wonderful town and is home to Burdick’s Chocolatiers, where my wife and I would often stop at the end of a long week and frequently see Ken Burns there enjoying their coffee, treats and food)
The thing that I want to share isn’t the hot chocolate at Burdick’s or Ken Burns’ Civil War, both of which are exquisite, but a quote that Ken Burns shared during his conversation on Smartless. The quote was from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.b1965 commencement address at Oberlin College (again coming full circle). Dr. King said:
All I’m saying is simply this: that all mankind is tied together; all life is interrelated, and we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until ought to be until I am what I ought to be-this is the interrelated structure of reality.
When I stop and think about this quote, it beautifully summarizes my hope for the reality of the type of education that we are discussing in this newsletter and the type of education that I hope we live at City of Bridges High School. If every member of the community lives in this interrelated structure of reality and if we all believe that we cannot be what we ought to be, unless everyone else is able to be that they ought to be, then we have taken the most important step to being a truly humane learning environment.
I find grounding in ideas that capture what I hope to do in the world and Dr. Martin Luther King’s words from all those years ago, spoken in a place that changed my life, leaves me to pause and reaffirm and reevaluate the decisions I make in my life.
I don’t have a lot to add, other than sharing that I often take the time to revisit ideas and ideals that help to shape the choices that I make in my professional and personal life and I hope we can all do so as this community continues to grow.
Thank you for being on this journey and I look forward to what comes next here and in our work together in physical and virtual spaces.
People, Places and Things
In this section of the newsletter I share people, places and things that have inspired and taught me valuable lessons about rethinking learning.
This week’s issue is firmly grounded in my own experience and as a result I want to share a remarkable person and film that shaped my path in education.
I had the honor of being placed at the Westminster Central School in Westminster, Vermont for one of my student teaching placements. I learned an incredible amount from Irene Canaris, my mentor teacher. The classroom was a mixed age elementary community with a deeply integrated curriculum.
The town of Westminster also had a second elementary school, called Westminster West. This school was a one room school, with a 1st and 2nd grade classroom, which shared space with a 3rd and 4thgrade classroom. One of the teachers there was Clair Oglesby. I had the honor of meeting and talking with Clair a number of times. She exemplified the values we have been exploring over the last weeks and the ideal outlined by Dr. King in the quote above. Although it can be hard to find, there is filmmade about Clair’s classroom which exemplifies many of the things we have discussed.
I am always striving to be who I ought to be, and the people who have served as inspiration and role models for me have helped me immeasurable on my journey.
See you next week!