Teaching is the greatest of all
professions because all other professions are dependent
on teaching to even exist. Who are the great names
of human history: Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Buddha,
Confucius, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed… all great
teachers who long after their day, their teachings
are followed by most of Earth's citizens.
The teacher is an indispensable hero of human progress
and achievement. The teacher is responsible for
the quality of life for all who enter the classroom,
teaching the basic skills of reading, writing, and
mathematics, which are they absolutely the most
essential building blocks of individual and societal
progress.
The classroom is a hallowed ground, a sacred place
reminiscent of Gettysburg, Shiloh, Lookout Mountain,
and Bull Run: great victories are won here, and
great losses are also witnessed on the hallow ground
of the classroom. In fact, in an overwhelming number
of schools serving diversified populations today,
staggering losses are part of the daily battlefield
of the educational system: This hallow ground is
littered with the wounded, dying, and dead spirits
of millions of American children, victims of poor
teaching, racism, and oppression of the human spirit.
There is a holocaust of the mind and genocide of
the human spirit (Bray, 1997, 1999) taking place
in the public schools today. The Three R's of 'Reading,
'Riting, 'and 'Rithmetic have been replaced by the
3R's of Racism, Repression, and Repudiation (Bray,
2003). There is a critical need to address the present
educational crisis, to come to grips with the pedagogy
of failure that grips the heart, mind, and spirit
of not just minority cultures, but all children
in most classrooms in the nation’s schools.
This article addresses a new type of pedagogy:
The Pedagogy of the Human Spirit. Time is running
out for the children of the world, and a massive
change and transformation must take place and quickly,
before the cause is lost, the Earth itself is destroyed,
the masses doomed to self-annihilation, and the
coming catastrophe of the end of the Age comes upon
us driven by man's inhumanity to man.
Every child in the entire world, in Africa, Asia,
Europe, Australia, and the Americas has the right
to an equal educational opportunity the same as
any other child on Earth. The teacher in El Paso
is no less significant than the teacher in Juarez,
the teacher in Lake Forest no less critical than
the teacher on the Navajo Nation, the teacher in
a rural school in the hollows of Tennessee no less
vital than the teacher in South Africa – but
the children of all nations do not receive educational
opportunities they deserve and need to inherit the
Earth and all that is in it.
The Earth belongs to all of its people on an equal
basis, yet in America, with four percent of the
world's population, consumption of the world's goods
is twenty-eight percent, and of that four percent
the massive consumption is done by the top one percent.
America's abundance of natural resources and diversity
has always been her great strength, but the brain
drain from other nations is depriving these nations
of their futures. It is critical that a new pedagogy
of teaching be implemented to meet the needs of
all the children and all of the nations on the Earth:
The future belongs to them all equally and must
be shared equally or lost equally. The Earth is
reaching the flashpoint of critical mass, where
someday soon the people without will seek justice
for themselves and their children, for their survival
and their future. America must lead, follow, or
get out of the way so that all people can progress.
John F. Kennedy, in warning the Soviet Union to
tread carefully in its relations with the United
States, quoted an old Indian legend which applies
equally now to America, the world's only super power
in the 21st Century, "He who seeks adventure
by riding the back of the tiger, often winds up
inside" (Kennedy, 1961).
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