We all remember teachers who influenced our lives, Edna O'Connor observed. "Teachers, your role is so significant," she reminded, "and your impact is beyond our understanding."
O'Connor, for example, was empowered and motivated by one of her college professors, Mrs. Diggs. "She had pulled herself up with her own bootstraps," she recalled. "She showed us that education was a tool we could use to lift ourselves out of poverty. She filled us with hope." Mrs. Diggs's love and affection ensured that many people would lead meaningful and successful lives, according to O'Connor. "Mrs. Diggs is responsible for me."
For every Mrs. Diggs, however, too many people can recall a Ms. Daphne. Ms. Daphne was an artist who liked to draw illustrations and caricatures of the students in her high school class. O'Connor remembered that one of her friends was unfavorably rendered in one of those illustrations. Recently, O'Connor got word from her family that this friend had recently straightened her hair and altered her appearance in a way that they thought "was weird." When O'Connor talked with her friend about her physical transformation, she found that the seed of insecurity about how she looked had been sown 30 years before, in a teacher's cruel drawing.
"The power of the teacher lasts long after students have left the classroom. The power of the teacher affects not only the students she teaches," it affects generations to come. "That's an awful lot of power," O'Connor observed, exhorting teachers to therefore exercise their influence wisely. "Teachers have power. How we end up using that power is important."
Edna O'Connor asks, "What does it mean when we say, ‘Leave no child behind’?"
Follow this link [audio clip] for the answer. [Transcript of audio clip featuring Edna O'Connor.]
[Transcript of audio clip featuring Edna O'Connor.]
So what does “leave no child behind” mean?
It’s a belief and it’s an action that supports the reality that not one child—not one child in our school—is expendable. It is a belief and it is an action that I want and you want for your children—what other people want for their children. It’s a belief and an action that we’re going to operate in our schools like every child in that school belongs to us.
Now whose responsibility is it?
Well, there’s a little saying like this, it says “the responsibility of educating everybody’s child rests with four individuals.” Isn’t that simple? It’s only four people. The rest of us can take a break, but here are who those four people are. It’s said that these four people are Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.
As the story goes, there was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it and Anybody could have done it, and Nobody did it. Somebody got angry with that, because it was Everybody’s job and Somebody thought Anybody could do it. But the reality was Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it.
The responsibility of educating children belongs to everybody, somebody, and anybody.
