07/02/08

If you're a teacher and you're trying to teach to the career needs of every individual student or you're trying to teach to the presumed career needs of a conglomeration of young people, then you're not going to do well. If you're a teacher and you make the health of the community the standard of your work, then you're going to teach better. If you teach with the good health of your community in mind, you're going to try to make every one of your students the best possible member of the community. You're going to fail a lot, but you're going to change the way you teach and maybe you'll succeed some, too. If you suppose to yourself, "Well, when these kids graduate, that's probably the last I'm going to see of them," you're going to teach differently than you would teach if you assume that you're going to spend the rest of your life with these people. These kids are going to grow up. They're going to take their place in the community you live in. They're going to be your fellow citizens, your fellow members. -Wendell Berry