Quotes to live by

Good Evening loves :)

This week has been an interesting week. From me losing my job this week due to lack of enrollment to the issues surrounding my wedding planning fiasco, it has been quite the week.

I genuinely want to thank everyone who read and commented on my blog thus far. I appreciate the love and support :)

So, this week we discuss quotes to live by. Amazingly, I enjoy this assignment very much because anyone who knows me knows I enjoy reading inspirational quotes from famous novelists to rap artists.

I am an avid constructivist theorist when it comes to education. I solely believe that children should both be engaged in hands on learning throughout the course of their education while also influencing the material taught.

Two pioneers in the Early Childhood field that caught my interest this week was former President Lyndon B Johnson and the esteemed educator, Maria Montessori.

LBJ is one of the founders of the Head Start program that provides quality early childhood programming to low-income children- primarily African-American and Latino children.

Maria Montessori is the creator and pioneer of the educational methodology of "Montessori" that stresses hands-on learning in a a natural environment that encourages discovery.

I scoured the web and found a quote from each of them that really stood out to me:

"We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood."- Lyndon B Johnson

"Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed." Maria Montessori 

These quotes stood out to me in different ways due to their message and how it relates to different aspects of education I believe in.

I believe the reason that we have so much division amongst one another is simply because we do not know each other. (I'm paraphrasing from the great MLK)  We live in separate communities, go to separate schools, churches, etc. We only learn about one another from what is displayed in media or from hearsay but never through meaningful conversation and interaction. 

Before we can have talks to equality, there needs to be an understanding. I learned this through discourse with several of my friends and colleagues who are white and didn't fully understand the BLM movement. What initially was a firestorm of accusatory remarks of "reverse racisim" (WHICH DOES NOT EXSIST) came the understanding of what the underlining message behind the movement was. 

This discourse would not have occured if there was not a safe space, mutual respect, and open-mindedness from both parties. How can we expect our children who come from diverse backgrounds and cultures to live amongst people they do not understand if compassion and respect is not taught inside and outside the classroom?

I teach my children, from my Pre-K students to my high-school students, about diversity and how it's a beautiful thing and what has always made America great. Without that understanding, fear has freedom to run rampant.....And we all see what fear can become when something is misunderstood. Hate. 


The second quote from Maria Montessori excites me because it is the unspoken rule in my classroom. I teach new concepts, ideas, and philosophies in my classroom in order to push my students to greater lengths. One of my most memorable moments was when my seventh and eighth graders from the school I used to work in on the South side of Chicago told me my class was "hard". It was not hard because they couldn't do the work, but because it challenged them to greater heights than they ever saw themselves going. 

They had teachers that gave them mundane worksheets and busy work to pass time while I gave them research projects and group presentations on the roles they never knew existed. From reading Edgar Allen Poe to writing Haikus, my students were exposed to a new realm of learning that not only engaged and excited them, but pushed them to their limits and beyond. 

The quote I live by that was once spoken to me in a trying moment in my life was that "life begins at the edge of your comfort zone". 

I didn't understand it initially, but as I matured and experienced more opportunity that just a few years ago I would have written off as something I would NEVER do, it began to make a lot of sense. 

Life is short and life is what we all make it out to be. Pushing yourself to the edge of your comfort zone allows you to gain new perspective and enlightenment- exactly what we want our student to achieve; so why not push them?

Earlier this semester we discussed passion and how it pertains to our work. 

One quote from John Hagel in his article discussing how passion relates to profession is that "passion is about risk-taking"

As I mentioned, life begins when we push ourselves and our students beyond our comfort levels. We can't expect our students to remain stagnant and not move on to the next grade-levels- so why expect them to be content in learning only what is easy or makes them comfortable?

Similar to my discussion I had with my white colleagues, if these conversations that don't put pressure on our current thinking do not occur, how can we ever gain a new and different perspective? How can we expect our children to understand the world around them if they don't ask questions they have no idea the answers to? 

Early childhood education is a beautiful field that allows us to lay the foundation to which children gain the spark for learning. Creating and maintaining that curiosity for understanding is just as important as pushing for self-led discovery. 

"Tell me. I forget. Teach me. I remember. Involve me. I learn" Ben Franklin