More Praise For Passionate Rebels

by AJ

Hiroshi made my day today. I will be smiling for the rest of the week.

But Im also disturbed by his challenge. Because its quite a challenge for teachers. He's saying that boring classes are no longer tolerable. He's saying that memorizing irrelevant facts is no longer tolerable. He's saying that bullshit exams and useless letter grades are no longer tolerable.

He's right, of course. But that puts a BIG bullseye on teachers. For what Hiroshi is saying is that not only are boring teachers intolerable... so are "good" ones. When I read Hiroshi's post, I sensed a demand for greatness. He wants inspiring teachers. He wants teachers who dig deep.

I'll be honest... his post scared me a little. I certainly want to be remarkable and great... but Im not yet. So my first reaction to his post was to ask, "How do I inspire? How do I embody greatness? How do I nurture greatness in my students? How do I make a quantum leap in my teaching?"

Hard questions... to which I have no satisfactory answers at the moment.

And so I put the challenge to you-- the teachers and students who read this blog:

How can teachers embody and inspire greatness?
(And I dont mean "very good"... I mean "Greatness")