- You must Know the Past to undestand how to be Radical Today
Early principal and Times Long Gone.
Entering the large hallway area of the high school, I was privy to an unusual scene; one I didn’t realize was an early teaching me how to be radical.
The principal of the school was walking behind a large football player. The principal was kicking the player right in the butt as he forced him down the hall towards the door and finally totally outside.
Turning around, the principal saw my bewildered look and gave an unapologetic smile.
“Mr. Hitchcock, that’s what I call being kicked out of school.” he said with a gleam in his eye.
In that early time of my career we laughed, the principal didn’t go to jail, and the student learned not to swear at a teacher… and he and his father joked about it with us when the student was allowed to return.
How did we miss it?
That was 1965 and represented the norm in education. Students were held accountable, principals supported the teacher, and the parents were understanding about discipline.
In that world they were not considered teaching how to be radical, they were just normal.
Decades came and went, we endured Woodstock and Hippies, teachers u
nionized, we lived under the illogic of No Child Left Behind, and even survived Common Core.
Had we been awake, I think we should have seen it coming, at least hints of it. “It” being the horrible state of much in education today.
From DEI, White privilege, gender identity, political correctness, governmental involvement, drag queen shows…how did we miss all those signs?
Can common folks become revolutionary?
During the late 1700’s farmers, shopkeepers and even older kids took their trusty muskets in hand and with courageous incentive and changing the nature of battle, they defeated the British and a new nation was born.
The success of the American Revolution was accomplished by common people doing uncommon things.
The threat of the British on American freedom was real, but no more so than the threat we are experiencing in our educational system. The events we are seeing that work against the logic of learning are only symptoms of a deeper force capturing the education system.
We are at a critical point in history. Our kids minds and actions are threatened by forces that seem unable to be countered.
We can counter whatever evil forces are grabbing the minds and souls of kids in America. We can counter this force by common, normal, thinking teachers having courage to wake up, speak up and risk standing out in an environment of mental, emotional, and political disaster.
Why me?
It started to make sense the day my physics class and I buried Newton’s Third Law.
The day was perfect, replete with drizzling rain, taps played by a student, a mournful eulogy, and a two-gun salute. As I shoveled dirt over the quiz papers of “deceased” laws I realized my view of teaching wasn’t radical… it was just mine.
I noticed another result of the “funeral” was students remembered more about Newton’s Laws and seemed more engaged in the learning process.
This event occurred before the half-way mark in my career and was the start of serious and continuing study, searching for the “why and how” of my career.
As I sorted through my lifetime, several foundational principles began to appear.
This assessment of why and how I teach was filled with emotions; some serious, others humorous, and some rather traumatic. All different yet merging into developing into a person who literally enjoyed the entirety of my fifty-six year career.
My thinking changed during the final fifty years of my career. I thank my parents for providing a dynamic example of how life should be filled with the positive thoughts and actions which made being alive enjoyable and helpful.
My father gave me confidence to try new, even risky, things. My mother created in me a willingness to think things through and then act upon them. For instance, she never asked “How was school today?” Rather, her question was, “Which teacher inspired you the most? And why?” When I had a problem with a teacher she would always ask, “Did you talk with the teacger about the problem?” and then “Did you go to them with a suggestion on how the problem could be solved?”
During the last decade my thoughts went towards the nature of how we teach kids. The philosophy, the fundamental principles, the subtle concepts kids unknowingly deal with, cultural functions, and how those came together to affect how kids learned.
I am excited to share those ideas with you. More than excited, I think the ideas about how school should happen can be revolutionary in the way learning occurs.
We don’t need more duct-tape.
I’m done with trying to tape together another temporary fix to a thoroughly broken system.
We need a revolutionary change in the foundational system of learning. This revolution doesn’t need to be adversarial. It doesn’t have to be a top-down implementation. In fact, if a revolution in education is to be successful, it MUST be initiated and continued at the grassroots level of learning and teaching.
Significant change takes time. It takes commitment. And courage. Most of all, a genuine revolution needs to be fueled by a clear vision of what can be! To come to fruition, strategic actions must be implemented to bring victory to the stated goals.
Robert Frost’s poem reflecting his love relationship with his wife is interestingly relevant to the world of teaching and learning.
WEST-RUNNING BROOK
Robert Frost
Fred, where is north?”
“North? North is there, my love.
The brook runs west.”
“West-running Brook then call it.”
(West-running Brook men call it to this day.)
“What does it think it’s doing running west
when all the other country brooks flow east
to reach the ocean? It must be the brook
can trust itself to go by contraries
the way I can with you—and you with me—
Because we’re—we’re—I don’t know what we are.
What are we?”
“Young or new?”
“We must be something.
Going against the normal flow is risky. Colleagues may be derisive or think you marginally sane. Bosses may be offended… or worse. You may feel like a west-running brook, a minority, yet confidently going against the flow of educational changes.
Priming the Pump.
On my backpacking adventures in the Adirondack Mountains of New York state, there were places where the only safe water came from an old-fashioned pump th
at needed priming. The sweaty, thirsty hiker had to take the jar of fresh water left by the previous camper and pour it into the pump, creating the seal allowing the pump to bring fresh water to the surface.
Pouring the only water down the pump took a step of trust and confidence in bringing needed water to the hiker.
The purpose of this website and the associated podcast, “Radical Education,” is to prime our revolutionary learning and teaching pump. Let’s take a leap of confidence and begin quietly creating an educational revolution bringing a lifetime of passionate learning and purpose to our students.
Common People, Uncommon Results
I used the examples of common farmers and businessmen during the Revolutionary War defeating the British using unconventional methods. We as common people can accomplish the same. We can slowly, but radically, change the way education is done in America.
We won’t be trying to fix something that’s broken. Rather, we will educate students by taking all the things we say positively about teaching…but then continue with doing the systemic and new methods, based on philosophies that work.
Some colleagues may have thought me to be a bit “quirky,” even as they dismissed the ideas I expressed in faculty meetings as “yeah, but we’ve always done it this way” concepts.
The truth is, however, I simply chose to express my thoughts openly about teaching and learning. They were not unknown by others, just unsaid.
An Important Birthday
On the day I turned 50, I wrote a poem which expressed my goal for life at that time.
The Hat
When I get old
I don’t want to be anything.
I just want to have a hat.
Not a plastic hat,
but one whose sweat-stained band
fits snugly in my furrowed brow.
I share that poem because it’s important you know I am just a common guy. Just a normal, working, thinking, and observing person. The concept of living under the uncompromising nature of a hard-plastic hat was far from what I envisioned. The thoughts whirling through my mind at that time were all descriptors of parts of my being. They represented glimpses of who I wanted to be, but not the essence.
The poem represents who I am. I tried my best to live life, including my school life, based on the principles expressed in the bible.
That had some interesting, even risky, moments.
Fundamental Principles Govern Actions
Writing the above poem and burying Newton’s Third Law occurred during the time when I started thinking deeply about teaching and learning. From those thoughts came several fundamental principles which made sense of the plethora of unique actions and attitudes of society.
Perhaps as you explore my ideas about teaching and learning you will tend to think the “We’ve never done that.” or you may be an advocate of “progressive” concepts. I challenge you to choose to put that aside. I urge you to grasp the revolutionary thought of the American Revolutionary War “common folk” and bravely enter the battle for the minds and souls of our students.
Worldview is the Engine
The driving force for how each of us approaches education is governed by our worldview. Each of us has a worldview, either determined by our actions or developed after thought and logic.
Our chosen worldview influences our immediate reactions to problems, our action in responding, and our vision for future goals.
In my classroom I always started the year with the statement, “I will always tell you the truth. I will hide nothing from you. I do not have an ulterior motive. It’s not by accident we are brought together in this time and place. I invite you to come along on this learning adventure.”
That statement gave me the freedom to be me. To be exactly the person inside as outside.
In the first chapter I will explain my worldview to the extent that it affected my teaching and school life. The rest of this book will show how my worldview has had a profound effect on my actions.
Your worldview and actions may be radically different from mine, but please understand, I welcome your reading, thinking, expressing, and having conversation about the one thing we share, EDUCATING OUR STUDENTS, HELPING THEM BECOME THE BEST PERSON POSSIBLE.
My Assumptions About Teaching and People
- Your PROFESSION is teaching. Which means the academic standards you set are high and students make every attempt to reach those standards. (ideally!) It takes hard work and ambition to achieve your expectations. This is with a confession that the idea of being a profession has been radically diluted in recent years.
- Your MISSION is to use the subject you teach as a vehicle to help students achieve a Judeo-Christian worldview. People are born with a sin nature, therefore doing the right thing will not be natural. This viewpoint will conflict with WOKE initiated concepts. Frankly, you will need courage.
- CONTENTMENT of what happens by and to you daily is natural and to be expected. Simply stated, you will enjoy and be rewarded for teaching, even over “woke” non-natural decisions, greed of unions, or administrative demands.
- In the early 1960’s radical changes in teaching occurred. Political intervention, teacher unions, school administration, business interests, and cultural changes all intervened to make the teachers’ jobs almost impossible.
- An acronym and profit based system of fixing a broken educational system hasn’t fixed the problem. “Powers that be” are attempting to fix systems that only show symptoms. We, on this site and in our podcast, address many of the real issues.
- Common people MUST REVOLT against the status quo by adopting the principles and actions of a Radical Education system of teaching.
- Individuals or small groups of teachers can start a Revolution by having the courage to wake up, speak up and stand out from the evils present in teaching and replace the present status with a Revolutionary system of education.