A Servent Not a Superhero

"Our students are more than test scores, graduation rates, and disciplinary issues. They are the babies that parents prayed for and over and read to and work for and dream about. They are people who want the best for themselves whether or not they know how to articulate it or how to seek it out. Our education is more than the failure rhetoric and the achievement gap misnomer. Our problems are systemic, and endemic, but THEY WILL BE SOLVED BY PEOPLE: resilient people, unrelenting people with an edge."

 " The most important thing for you to do is to invite and invest colleagues who are already here, to work alongside the strength and capability that exists right now. Encourage and inspire people to enhance what we already know and what we already do so that we can make it better together. Look for strengths. They are here. You aren't bringing light and hope. The hope is here. Walk in it."

This is text taken from the speech given by Camika Royal, PhD. at the Philadelphia Teach for America 2012 Institute Opening Ceremony.These are my immediate, slightly ignorant, maybe too humanistic,  thoughts in response to text:

What mature, clearly bright, controversial thing to say to a group of bright eyed, bushy tailed, twenty-somethings hoping to change a community.  I personally observe that I  have given myself a little too much credit at times, thinking that the things I do will bring hope and light into someone's life, as is maybe the biggest down fall of our often over achieving, service driven, internally cocky generation. An attitude that, I do believe, often lends its' self to goal obtainment regardless of it's pitfalls. I find sometimes walking around  pretending I can save the planet by picking up litter makes the rate at which I  pick up said litter go up, then it could be argued that I should pretend I superman for sake of the environment. The problem is that sometimes when I put on my cape I actually start believing I can fly and that is impossible without the help of someone else and there resources. I, often thankfully, am not superwoman.

If I have learned anything it all is that I am not the beckon of hope that I want to be. I am  only a friend, a teacher, a lover, a student, a fellow human being who's true passion lies in being as resilient and  remarkable as the people around me. I think this speech is beautiful because it is the hard truth about servant leadership and I'm really glad to have heard such an eye opening perspective.