The Trailblazer

Over the course of my life, I have been blessed to meet innovators and creative people on a mission to pursue good. I have had the further gift, set forth by these same people, to share my gifts and partake of the gifts of others to pursue this same good. These people carried the banners of faith, hope  and love in whatever they did, without apology, despite backlash, because they could not live in a world without passion.

Every morning, I pass under the following statement, above the art room door, pressed in blue stickers above:

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail...

I have returned to teach and learn once again to a school I helped open with a visionary team of trailblazers. Today, I have come from a professional development meeting, abuzz with creative ideas and visions for the future. And I take pause to notice that the "e" is missing from the statement above the door. I have seen it missing before but now I feel its absence.

When I started here, I was an energetic, passionate, and younger man driven to help learners and support instructors in lofty aims to improve education. I had found a trailblazer who was lit with passion and vision. I joined him and others on this trail we were forging in this new forerunner high school. 

On this trail, we planned the structures for student choice and student support. We made collaborative curriculum development the accepted norm. We opened the school with transparency. Professional development was driven by and for each other. Educational technology freed teachers and students to engage more fully and broadly in learning. All of us took on roles of accountability and responsibility. 

All stakeholders were invited to the table, where open and honest dialogue ensued. We were challenged with creative freedom and responsibilities to do more and to do it together. We did our research. We experimented. We engaged our students in the planning. 

We built a whole school for everyone. We supported fervently and without bias academics, arts, workplace, athletics, leadership, and religious studies. We struggled and we celebrated as teams.  We took on a mantra based on Einstein's observation that insanity was doing the same thing and expecting different results - so we must see and do differently to achieve genuine education. We took what we had learned and went on to discover more about ourselves and others.

On this path, we must continue. We must find the courage and find purpose.