"We should tolerate flaws in other people in the vain hope that they will tolerate our flaws." -- I don't remember who first told me that, but it made a ton of sense to me.
Better we make the wise decision than the expedient one.
Read the older educators... Read Ted Sizer and Deborah Meier and Herb Kohl... and feel the wisdom in their words. They write without hubris, but instead with an acknowledgment of their own flawed humanity. They write with an understand that they cannot be all things to all children, but with the knowledge that they must come as close as they can.
I am far from religious, but I am reminded a lot these days of the serenity prayer:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
I work from the first moments to persuade people that it's possible for all of
us to learn together as a community in a more deeply satisfying and useful way
than if students take responsibility only for their own learning
Knowing why we use forums, blogs, wikis, synchronous chat and video, social
bookmarks, mindmaps is the foundation for the kind of active inquiry, culture of
conversation, self-directed collaborative groups that bring a peer learning
group to life.
The magic in this simple whiteboard exercise is that multiple actions can take
place simultaneously and nobody knows who is doing what.
talk about the importance of exploring close enough to the edge to fall over it
frequently. I model tolerance for error, learning from error, pushing the
envelope of tech