Grace and Courtesy

Moving forward A few weeks ago I celebrated one year of living in Massachusetts. A year ago, I drove a UHaul truck with my few belongings to a storage unit, and began living with a 92 year old woman who'd been in her town all her life. She's a lovely Christian woman, who I learned so much from in those months. One thing in particular is that it is easy to become accustomed to doing things your way. I never want to become too comfortable in that mindset. Working with children has the ability to amplify your desire to have power "over", or it can increase your flexibility to have power "with". Both ways of being require practice. So after ten years of living in New York City, working at a total of 3 schools in 10 years, I decided that I was done in the Big Apple. I wanted to leave before I hated the place. The extremes of humanity so easily found in Gotham wore on my heart and mind. To experience it daily--homelessness, unfathomable wealth, continued partialit...

Great apologies  I have not been so diligent in getting out my blog posts and podcast episodes in a timely manner and I want that to change. If I'm really going to put focused, continual effort into this work, I think it's only right to walk in a state of discipline. This is an area of weakness that I have when it requires work that appears to only effect myself. Like many teachers, a strong motivation to do work comes from those it will effect, in my case the small children in my care. But when it comes to myself,  I have great difficulty staying motivated. But this is why we continue to grow, right? This blog/podcast is meant to be an intersection of Race, Christianity, and Montessori pedagogy. I'm often thinking about all of these things throughout the day and how they effect one another. But today I want to get a little personal and talk about how I began my journey of walking the path of the Christian. My hope in sharing this is to bring to light the work that God is d...

I have a habit of reading multiple books at once. Hopefully I'm not alone in this. As I have just gotten off of a wonderful vacation, I took a good chunk of that time to read. And as you might imagine, my reading list is right at the intersection of  Race, Religion, and education (I couldn't think of another "r" word that means the same as education). Some of these books are what I'm currently reading, so I don't have a review on it per-se. But hopefully they are helpful. Race How to be an Antiracist  by Ibram X. Kendi My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized trauma and the pathways to mending our hearts and bodies  by Resmaa Menakem Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman (which could also be in the religion category, but ah well) Education The Tao of Montessori: Reflections on Compassionate teaching by Catherine McTamaney Citizen of the World by Maria Montessori Religion   Jesus Knowing God by J.I. Packer The Little book of Christian Living by John Ca...

 I know I should be going into the new year with a forward gaze, but I am amazed at what has happened in the world (and in my life!) the past few months. Let me share with you.  I began this blog and podcast with the intention of combining many different interests into one intersecting conversation. I am a Christian and I view my life through that lens. That is to say, I strive that everything I do would be done to give glory to God in light of His great love towards me and the world, chiefly shown through the death burial and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. (That was a long sentence.) Under that umbrella, I am a Black man whose career is education. I believe that educating young people has a way of changing the course of their future. I have chosen to adopt Montessori pedagogy as the means through which I educate children. While I've been in education for 10 years, I've been on this specific journey of Montessori philosophy for the last 4 years. I've gone fr...