Goosebumps

So many great quotes . . .wherever should I start?  Louis Pasteur perhaps? "chance favors the prepared mind"  The Turning Points 2000 vision?  "we hope that the adolescents emerging from the middle grades will demonstrate the characteristics we would expect to find in our neighbors, in our colleagues, and in our leaders."  Beane & Brodhagen (2001)   . . . "The relationships fostered between and among students and teachers as they integrate curriculum collaboratively support the kind of care, decency, and humanity that we hope would characterize our fellow citizens. "    Of course Turning Points 2000: Lessons Learned has many more brilliant quotes to get you excited, but quoting the entire article is not very practical. Pasteur was absolutely right to say that we can be the luckiest person in the world, but if we are not prepared, we can never reach our full potential.  It is our job to help our students become prepared.  Turning Points 2000: Educating Adolescents for the 21st Century  and Beane & Brodhagen all spoke about the possibility of amazing, well-rounded citizens fresh out of middle school.  Would you rather have a world full of citizens that know the dates of wars or citizens that can think critically about war in general?  I get goosebumps just thinking of the possibilities.  This is what keeps me going.  There is no other profession that is more important than teaching.  He hold such a great responsibility in our hands each and every day.