Recognizing those moments of importance usually provides space for creative growth instead of stagnation and inculcation. Fearing the opposite does nothing to ensure the beautiful emergence of those times of lovingly destructiveness.
Today's events at the food/nutrition conference offered almost no opportunities for creative expansion and critical analysis of our own work. I assumed upon arriving there would have been at least some time for us to brainstorm practical techniques to better our work--trust me most of the attendees could have used it. More than a brainstorm, we could have dealt with 'raw data' from the 'raw educators'. What works with which populations? And why? Then we can deal with dealing with young diverse learners.
Dispassionately speaking, our objective as educators (PA NEN affiliated) is to 'boost the nutrition of low-income families', and as vague as this mission is it is clear about who the actors of this work are and who are the objects are when the educators are supposed to be boosting the nutrition. 'Are we going to be shoveling healthy foods into these animals mouths or what?' I should have asked. Instead we should be empowering low-income families to boost their own nutrition.
Imagine such a drastically different student-teacher relationship. With such a base we could be talking at conferences about philosophies of empowerment rather than this regular, non-creative, bullshit!
Thank you.
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