…if you sometimes feel that being a “Good Teacher” is a slippery slope of unceasing expectation...that’s because it is. The archetypal ideal, i.e., Good Teacher, is not and has never been one thing. The mores of the job have always reflected those of society’s dominant voices. But time moves on and so too can we unmoor ourselves from the unhelpful and oppressive narratives of past powers…
Read More“…Let your only resolution for the new year to think in broad strokes: What do you want life to feel like?…”
Read More“…I was ready to rumble over the idea of “boy colors,” “girl colors,” and the rights of all children to wear any dress they want. But as I gained more experience, it wasn’t the children I worried about any longer. I found young children to be open and accepting of interventions like, “Oh, actually colors are not about boys and girls. They are just about color.” Not such a big deal. What I found instead, as if so often the case, if that it was the adults who couldn’t shake the gender habit….”
Read More“…We have to learn to view children as thinkers first and foremost. Researchers of themselves and those around them. We have to value that work. So, for NML, I knew I had to do that literally. As in, pay children for their art and labor…”
“…I see my role as a co-constructor of meaning as the single most important part of my work, so much so that I sometimes question the term “educator” itself. There are moments when I have been so equally invested, curious, and in it with the children’s thinking that I wonder a little, what is the difference between me and anyone else who might actually just listen to children and care about what they think and feel. What makes me a capital-T Teacher in an egalitarian classroom? It is this…”
Read More“…Granted, I was seventeen and seventeen-year olds love to know better than adults by default, but I began to develop something more than adolescent self-righteousness, I started to feel conviction that these children deserved at least as much respect as we “grown ups” were paying the annual paper leprechauns. …”
Read MoreMicah Card is a writer and educator in Los Angeles, CA.
No Magic Lecture is a blog about teaching, learning, and living alongside young children, though the principles here apply to all learners (including you!). Creating a meaningful life with children is about holding a vision and seeing it through together. The phrase “No Magic Lecture” means there is no one perfect thing that must make or break a moment, a behavior, a child, family, or classroom. It’s a reminder, reprieve, and an invitation. Welcome.
Micah Card is a writer and educator in Santa Cruz, CA. She believes in the power of children, thinking deeply and critically, and in reminding ourselves that the point of all this is to grow.
To learn more about Micah’s work and credentials, click here.
