THIS IS WIL KO.
I came into leading schools eager to fulfill what my mentors at both Columbia’s University’s Principal program and The NYC Leadership Academy implored as a moral duty of new leaders: “In a failing system, you have to be as successful as you have to be in order to win the influence to break it.” Having the audacity to question archaic policies, and not be compliant to ineffective ones, allowed us to deliver some breath-taking gains. We earned double digit growth on the state test, and created a culture of kindness and achieving with purpose.
I was never suppose to be in education. I went to art school and entrepreneur since young. But what was intended to be a two-year sabbatical working with student-inmates at Rikers Island jails changed everything. All under 18 and under unimaginably duress away from home facing severe threats of physical and psychological violence, they nevertheless came to school each morning with the kind of fight in their eyes that made your fists clenched, too. No matter the mistake they may have made, they have all been failed by their schools and community one way or the other, and have endured discrimination and oppression silently co-signed by society, and all of us.
I learned that although having to endure injustice and inequities may not be a choice, to have the hope and courage to fight against it, is.
I lead schools absolutely sure that when children feel joy, find self-worth, and realize that their calling as learners is to help heal a wounded world, no other outcome is possible but fierce, self-motivated, and unstoppable learning.
Our primary responsibility as educators isn’t to teach; It is to help children find their reasons to learn, and create a space conducive to their self-driven discovery. Any educators who’d like resources and materials we used to bring inquiry-driven learning, for both students and adult professional learning, send me a note and we can connect.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SPOTLIGHT
Click for TC Summer Principals Academy’s IG
AIRPLANES: RIKERS EDITION
A song written, produced, and recorded by the student-inmates at Rikers Island jails with nothing more than an iMac, a contraband mic, their indescribable pain, and their audacity to rise from it.
mrkobot.com 