teaching in the undertow

my classes with UCLA start last week. one of the articles we were assigned to read for tomorrow afternoon/evening's class is titled "teaching in the undertow." the undertow consists of the traditional way of schooling - where teachers direct students all day long and students sit there as passive absorbers of information (everything social justice education stands against). the heart of the article hit on all of the struggles that teacher who believe in critical pedagogy face each day in the classroom and how easy it is to get carried away by the current. the interesting advice was this, if we keep swimming against the current, we'll tire and burn out. but, rather, we should swim with it a little (so pick and choose which battles to fight for) and then when it's time, swim free towards your goal, be it the shore or whatever. i'm digging the ocean metaphor - if for no other reason that at times, teaching feels like drowning - especially if you're sick - which today, i am.

in another reading, i found the following quote, which i really liked:

teaching involves a search for meaning in teh world. teaching is a life project, a calling, a vocation that is an organizing center of all other activities. teaching is past and future as well as present, it is background as well as foreground, it is depth as well as surface. teaching is pain and humor, joy and anger, dreariness and epiphany. teaching is world building, it is architecture and design, it is purpose and moral enterprise. teaching is a way of being in the world that breaks through the boundaries of the traditional job and in the process redefines all life and teaching itself.

- william ayers (professor of education at the university of illinois - chicago)