Donovan Livingston - You Belong Among The Stars

Transcript:

"Today, when I look my students in the eyes all I see are constellations. If you take the time to connect the dots, you can plot the true shape of their genius shining in their darkest hour. I look each of my students in the eyes and see the same like that aligned Orion's Belt in the Pyramids of Giza. I see the same twinkle that guided Harriet to freedom. I see them. Beneath their masks and their mischief exists an authentic frustration and enslavement to your standardized assessments. At the core, none of us were meant to be common. We were born to be comets darting across space and time, leaving our mark as we crash into everything. A crater is a reminder that something amazing happened right here, an indelible impact that shook up the world. Are we not astronomers searching for the next shooting star? I teach in hopes of turning content into rocket ships, tribulations into telescopes, so a child can see their true potential from right where they stand, and injustice is telling them they are stars without acknowledging the night that surrounds them. Injustice is telling them education is the key while you continue to change the locks. Education is no equalizer, rather it is the sleep that precedes the American dream, so wake up, wake up, lift your voices until you've patched every hole in a child's broken sky. Wake up every child so they know of their celestial potential. I been the black hole in the classroom for far too long, absorbing everything without allowing my light to escape, but those days are done. I belong among the stars and so do you. And so do they."

- Donovan Livingston