Here’s an excerpt from my favorite poem, A Psalm of Life by Longfellow. (If you’ve received an email from you, you’ll recognize the “Lives of great men” line as I use in in my signature.)
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time ;
This poem came to mind as I was thinking of all the great people who have inspired me. There are many- from writers to artists to musicians. And then there’s the other artists that we don’t really consider artists. The smiling clerk who excels at customer service. The mechanic who intuits what’s wrong with your car and fixes it at a reasonable cost. The friend with the listening ear or the compassionate mama who nurtures her babies.
Consider:
“He should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here
lives a great street-sweeper who did his job well’.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
Sadly, in our conformity driven educational models, we marginalized, (and label,) people who aren’t strong academically. We obsess over teaching them history when what they need is an opportunity to shine in the area of their unique strengths.
We do a great disservice to insist that every child be on track for college. And in the process we also kill off the artist inside.
The world is robbed of the distinctive and life giving talents it so desperately needs.
True education must first begin with the question: Who am I? And from there proceed to: What are my passions? and then…What do I need to learn so I can become the best at whatever I do?
The doing flows out of the being. What a beautiful way to watch the artist in our kids come forth.
Filed under: ADD/ADHD, College education, education, Individuality, Labels are for Soup Cans, Personal development, The Mother Lode Project | Tagged: ADD, ADD/ADHD, ADHD, edcuational models, learning differences, public school | Leave a Comment »
