What I really like about this essay is that it has me thinking about courage.
Sometimes my seeming acts of courage felt instinctive. If there's no choice, is it courage? I remember once as a young teacher leaving an assembly that was billed as a fashion show in which students showed the clothes that they had made in sewing class. As girls came on stage those assembled greeted them with knee slapping, choking with laughter responses or whistles and catcalls. I tore into the office of the principal and minced no words, making clear why I left and telling him that I took as many of my kids with me as I could get to leave. I was a young teacher and could have been fired so was that act courageous? I didn't feel anything but fury. Would it have been more courageous had I made my way to the stage and yelled at the several hundred people present? Would it have made those girls feel better? Or would that have been seen as crazy rather than courageous?
That feeling, that act, is so easy to recall. No equivocation. Pure.
What I really like about this essay is that it has me thinking about courage.
Sometimes my seeming acts of courage felt instinctive. If there's no choice, is it courage? I remember once as a young teacher leaving an assembly that was billed as a fashion show in which students showed the clothes that they had made in sewing class. As girls came on stage those assembled greeted them with knee slapping, choking with laughter responses or whistles and catcalls. I tore into the office of the principal and minced no words, making clear why I left and telling him that I took as many of my kids with me as I could get to leave. I was a young teacher and could have been fired so was that act courageous? I didn't feel anything but fury. Would it have been more courageous had I made my way to the stage and yelled at the several hundred people present? Would it have made those girls feel better? Or would that have been seen as crazy rather than courageous?
That feeling, that act, is so easy to recall. No equivocation. Pure.