This weekend, we gained an additional day to rest, focus on home and family, and plan for upcoming weeks. Yet, this beautifully placed long weekend in January should also remind us of the man for whom the day is named, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Perhaps there is no better way to honor him, than to learn from his words. This is a small part of a speech he gave after being awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and it seems as relevant and timely now as it did almost 57 years ago.
"Modern man has brought this whole world to an awe-inspiring threshold of the future. He has reached new and astonishing peaks of scientific success. He has produced machines that think and instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of interstellar space. He has built gigantic bridges to span the seas and gargantuan buildings to kiss the skies. His airplanes and spaceships have dwarfed distance, placed time in chains, and carved highways through the stratosphere. This is a dazzling picture of modern man’s scientific and technological progress.
Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers."
In the speech he goes on to identify racial injustice, poverty and war as areas which we should strive to
eliminate, yet these two paragraphs stand out.
The first highlights all that we love about STEM education. The advances, the learning, and the developments available through STEM learning are amazing!
And the second, keeps us grounded, reminding us that filling students minds full of content, giving them goals to aim for and awards to achieve is great, but not ALL we want for students.
May our school be a place where students learn to think deeply, be curious and creative, and develop skills to enhance the world, and also may it be a place where students gain a richness of belonging, a shared appreciation for differences in thought and culture, and a heart for the global community.
Thank you for finding ways to consistently focus on the developing mind, body and soul.
You are changing the world.
Kim
This well written article emphasizes the notion that we, as individuals and, as part of a larger society have to continue to strive to achieve harmony from disharmony, moderation from conflict and understanding from confusion. This must be accomplished by self -realization and assessment of what needs to be fixed and how to fix it. MLK determined that he was going to make his voice heard about issues facing minorities and he went about the business of fixing it. Likewise, in our lives, we must assess our needs individually and societally and go about the business of making changes for the better.