The topic of this week’s #YourEduStory Blog Challenge is “Inspired by MLK: How will you make the world a better place?”  I believe educators step in front of a classroom everyday with this desire. It’s our daily craft of teaching, building authentic relationships with students that creates the small changes that can have ripple effects by creating even larger changes in the world.

Martin Luther King Jr’s, “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963 still resonates today. Our schools can create freedoms for our students or limit them. “Now is the time.” The stakes are too high for our kids to wait. To create the changes we wish to see in the larger system, “We cannot walk alone.” As educators, we need to use our voices to increase awareness and influence decisions. There is tremendous experience and expertise in classrooms everywhere. We need to leverage that and lean on one another which is why I love the idea of this shared blog challenge. When we think we have something down or something is going right, “We cannot be satisfied.” We must continue to challenge ourselves and each other to grow as we build an educational system deserving of all our kids.

As King said, “Even though we face difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream…” that our public schools will equitably serve EVERY child no matter their zip code, race, or disability status. This is how I will continue to make the world a better place even with the difficulties and challenges that lay ahead. I do not have to walk alone in this journey. The process of reflection, akin to the Reflection Pool that King’s words traveled across more than 50 years ago, will help me make better choices in the name of never being satisfied. Because “Now is the time.”