Honest Truth: Nothing Is More Important than Beautiful Relationships Built Alongside Young People. @NCTE Met with A Student from Long Ago...26 Years Later

One of the cool things about the privileges and affordances of being at a University and doing the collective work I do with K-12 youth and public school educators, is that the bonds made in the classroom are often much stronger than the pride and prestige of academic work, or the pomp and circumstance of conference presentations and publications. It is an absolute privilege to travel the country, city to city, to meet with alumni from my high school teaching days and to catch up on their excellence, their stories, and their appreciation for life so many years later. Phew. Time is something.

Truth is, I ducked out from NCTE for of couple hours on Saturday because a girl I taught from 1996-1998 settled in the LA region after taking our girls basketball team to state, then graduating from the University of Kentucky. Always an amazing student.

I was fortunate to teach in a K-12, public school dedicated to diversity, inclusivity, and individual excellence. All I've known as an educator is what is possible through human connectedness, dialogue, sharing, and support for individual achievement. Diversity. Inclusivity. Community. Always. Exclusivity is always dangerous. Bringing in voice, perspective. lived experiences, and democracy remains the top priorities for how I believe we get things done.

I was fortunate to meet her husband, too, to catch up on the last few years, and to reminisce about my first years of teaching, and the young minds that made a tremendous impact on the man I am today.

The older I get, the more cautious I become. Still, I remain stalwart for youth and the many ways they teach me about good, justice, equity, and human possibility, especially as they counter their own adversities in life. 

Love you, Nadia. Alway have. Always will. Definitely the highlight of this year's conference.