Yikes!(Hello)

Yikes. Both FB and this Board have so many warnings posted it's like when I always put "The Rules" up in big letters in my room -- and used them all year long. Survival, combat mode, but still seeking the space for growth that is the only reason to be there (here?) in the first place.

My  name is David and I am an "involuntarily retired" teacher who volunteers a little and cares for very old and young family members a lot.

I was a 1st year ghetto middle school teacher at age 47 and did that for 6 years. It was brutal, educational, and the best thing I ever did. My whole team left the school a year after the administration changed. By then I was a "guerilla teacher," meaning I had learned (mostly the hard way) how to learn from kids how to connect with their hearts/brains, but was better at that than negotiating the "grownup" side of schools. I bounced around for another 9 years --SPED, charters, unemployment-- but wasn't grounded enough to find/keep a home base school in the messy world. When the economy tanked I could no longer find a place willing to take a risk on an old man who worked with kids lots of teachers didn't want to, but had held/lost too many jobs.  Now I volunteer some, and work-play much with my 2 grandsons.

I learned of you thru popular resistance.org   -- need to spend some time here to see what lives and how, also if connex with the old school goodguys, previous gen of reformers such as deborah meier, because if the roads are good, the bridges are vital. (Yeah I also write poetry madly).