It is highly unusual that I share sketchs of a text I am in the process of palabrizing, but this time I will make an exception, for very mighty reasons. Be aware that because this post is a sketch, both English and Spanish will be used on it. As the text progresses, you can expect it to become a fully English-written text, using grammarly to express my ideas properly. Right now I am not even using Grammarly, I am simply sketching ideas in my iPhone note pad.

All this began with an email of my ex-thesis director, sent just before going to sleep, in which he told me —in a very fraternal way— “te quiero mucho”. I was deeply shocked for those words, not exactly only for the institutional sense —I won’t explain this further, but for now it is enough to assume that you can consider extremely rare than a person belonging to the institution he belongs can say something like that to a woman, especially a woman like me— but for the existencial sense: it is quite rare in my life that someone says me that, I am used to be gaslighted, mimicked, abused by everyone around me. I had no answet to the email: I had no idea how to answer to a human affective expression, not even if it was done in a very appropriate context. I do know how to answer to divine affective expressions… but until that email I was not aware that I have no idea of what to do if is a human around me who does the same than is being done in dreams.

We prayed this in last night dream, of course, and the appropiate way to answer him was prayed… and I did answered his extreme kindness during the day, when I felt prepared to do so. If I was unable to say it by words, I should do it by action. So, I did, quite literally…

And in the middle of the process of explaining him what should have been explained… well, a whole Growthful Philosophy of Education began to be conceived, palabrized and sketched in my iPhone. That wasn’t expected at all to happen today, and that is why I am choosing —as an exception— sharing the sketch of this uncoming text. This time I will share the sketch, the original text and the revised text. This is the sketch. 

De ahora en adelante, en lugar de el estudiante doctoral preguntarle al profesor o profesora X si acepta ser su mentor… va a pasar lo contrario, como pasó en el sueño de anoche: ahora lo que sucedió implícitamente fue un “intellectual proposal” en el sentido contrario, en el que el profesor o profesora mentora va a decirle al estudiante “te quiero mucho, quieres escribir esta investigación/research paper/tesis?” 😂 Its hilarious how all this thing happened… simply due an email, that was quite short but deep enough to have consequences. This time the “thesis director” will be the radiant one among my family of Heaven.

I feel I should clarify: aunque mi ex-director de tesis fue el que me dijo “te quiero mucho”, NO FUE EL QUIEN ME PIDIO QUE ESCRIBIERA ESTO (eso debe quedar claro), fue mi familia del Cielo la que me pidió que escribiera la filosofía de la educación que dejé pendiente por escribir, y dije que sí, pero no lo veía como algo que literalmente me fuera a salir inmediatamente, como me salió hoy. El título original de mi tesis de filosofía de la educación era algo así como “Keys of a Peircean Philosophy of Education” o algo así, mi ex-director de tesis insistió mucho en la palabra “keys”, eso lo recuerdo bien.

Realmente planificaba leer un poco de psicología antes de hacer lo que se me pidió anoche, no lo vi como algo que pudiera ser capaz de ordenar y palabrizar hoy mismo, sino mucho más adelante. Todo lo que pasó hoy was highly intense Holy Spirit action, again. El “intellectual proposal” de anoche se dio con una pluma nueva, no con una alianza, creo que el detalle es importante de aclarar.

Mi familia del Cielo opina que si mi ex-director de tesis hubiese hecho desde un principio lo que hizo en ese email, la tesis doctoral de filosofía de la educación que me pidió hubiera sido escrita hace años atrás, sencillamente debió pedir las cosas “con propiedad” 😂😂😂😂, like Jesus does with the women of the well in The Chosen scene: «I am sorry: I should have said “please”». Really, is too funny how my family of Heaven told me this contemplatively in the dream. 

La escena a la que me refiero puede verse aquí:

How we did choose to tell my ex-thesis director “yo también te quiero mucho” through action, despite being an email writen with words?

I feel I can share the email I wrote to him without any kind of problem. Here it goes:

Muy estimado profesor X [I wont say his name here]:

Your kindness is outstanding. No se preocupe por el momento en que logre tener el tiempo para contestarme. Esto se lo llevo diciendo desde mis tiempos de estudiante graduada: no tiene que contestarme los mensajes inmediatamente. 😂 

[Now I beging to answer with action to the email in which he said me “te quiero mucho”]

Cuando yo le decía “te quiero mucho” a mis estudiantes lo hacía —entre otros gestos, como crearles proyectos creativos que a ellos les gustaran— dándoles libros y leyéndoles cuentos apropiados para su edad, para la clase y para su crecimiento personal pleno… y ellos me decían “we love you too, teacher” sencillamente prestando atención a lo que enseñaba, aunque no fuera solo de la clase, sino sencillamente para su pleno crecimiento como personas. Supongo que se puede entender que para una maestra y persona con evidentes dificultades con la atención —como lo soy yo o cualquier persona con ADHD—, el que los estudiantes me prestaran atención fuera considerado un gesto de “yo también te quiero”, incluso si los estudiantes no siempre lo dicen explícitamente de esa manera. A edades tempranas sí que lo dicen, a veces hasta les es necesario según su developmental stage; cuando les leia cuentos también los abrazaba si era necesario y hasta los dejaba arroparse con blankets que había en el reading corner del salón, los niños pequeños necesitan ese tipo de gestos fraternos y creativos para aprender apropiadamente según su developmental stage, nunca he sido maestra de enseñar inglés solo con gramática, sobre todo porque en primer lugar yo misma no lo aprendí inglés gramáticamente y soy totalmente incapaz de aprender una lengua solo con gramática, usted vio eso muy bien con mis reiterados suspensos en Latín (es la clase que más he reprobado en todo mi historial académico, lo intenté cabezonamente una y otra vez).

Es importante enseñarle a los estudiantes que cuando se dice “yo también te quiero mucho, teacher [I love you too, teacher]” no solo se dice con palabras, también se dice con actos, como prestar atención al maestro que está tomando de su tiempo y esfuerzo cognitivo para enseñar lo que está enseñando y decir lo que les está diciendo. La importancia de la unidad de being y act es una lección de vida muy necesaria, incluso en edades tempranas como lo han sido mis estudiantes más jóvenes (he enseñado desde edad preescolar [4 años] en adelante). Aprender esa unidad necesaria entre palabra, significado y significación no es mera filosofía del lenguaje —el tema de filosofía del lenguaje se tiene que asumir necesariamente en una clase como la materia de inglés—, sino que es parte del growthful formation (formación dada en orden a formar su crecimiento pleno, no solo en orden a dominar unos skills académicos; “learning by forming”) de cualquier estudiante. 

Lamentablemente en la enseñanza de inglés como segundo idioma no es común que se recalque la importancia de los cuentos y del Childrens Literature, se suele recalcar más la gramática. A mí desde la universidad me enseñaron muy bien acerca de la importancia del Children’s Literature, mi profesora mentora en la Facultad de Educación se encargó muy bien de eso. Una de las formas con las que me servía para que mis estudiantes aprendieran a amar el inglés —esa clase es tremendamente conocida como la más odiada entre niños puertorriqueños— era leyéndoles cuentos en inglés o bilingues que a ellos les gustaran, aunque no fueran estrictamente parte del currículo asignado. Los padres entendieron esto bien y ninguno se opuso a mi petición de que cada padre me trajera al menos un cuento en inglés o bilingue que le gustara a sus hijos para que estuvieran en la biblioteca del salón, poniendo como único límite que el libro fuera en inglés o bilingue, que el contenido del cuento fuera del interés de su hijo/hija y que también fuera contenido apropiado para una escuela de formación católica; siempre y cuando se cumplieran esos criterios, los padres podrían enviar a mi salón de clase el libro de cuentos o incluso libros de contenido científico [he tenido de todo entre mis estudiantes: astronautas, inventors, maestros, toy creators, pastry chefs…; sabía muy bien los sueños de mis estudiantes y siempre los tomé en serio, particularmente recuerdo unos second graders cuyo grupo entero era casi totalmente de varones, solo había una niña, y ellos como grupo de varoncitos tenían sueños bien particulares… en fin, los sueños de mis estudiantes estaban dibujados por ellos mismos en un dream wall del salón] que quisieran.

A una persona como usted le puede gustar mucho el último libro que asigné a mis estudiantes: Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes. Para ser un libro infantil y sencillo tiene lecciones extraordinarias, tanto para niños como para adultos. Puede verlo, cuando necesite un descanso para las neuronas (es muy divertido y es breve) aquí:

Después verá que menciono ese mismo libro en una de las revisiones del escrito. 

Compré algunos libros de psicología que aún no me han llegado, así que mientras tanto puedo comenzar a estudiar propiamente psicología por mi cuenta para proseguir con la próxima etapa de la integracción me tomaré el tiempo y la atención de leer la ética del intelecto de Peirce que en su momento me dio con tanto aprecio e interés en mi crecimiento intelectual (podrá ver la foto de la ética peirceana a la que me refiero en otra de las revisiones que añadí, aunque creo que se la puse en un email también).

Le deseo lo mejor en su quehacer en sus clases.

Ya le dije: no me tiene que contestar los emails inmediatamente —siempre me sorprendo cuando lo hace—, ni al próximo día, ni siquiera al próximo domingo, puede tomarse el tiempo que necesite. 

Un saludo fraterno,

Damaris

This was the email answer that started the whole conception of the Keys of a Growthful Philosophy of Education, and the text that will eventually be called “Yes, We Can Grow Best: Keys for a Growthful Philosophy of Education”.

Creo que en su momento, con lecciones vivas, mis estudiantes sí que lograron aprender que el mejor gift que podían hacerme y el mejor “te quiero mucho” que podían decirme era… sencillamente prestando atención a lo que enseñaba, no meramente siguiendo las instrucciones…

Pero… también requiere cierta madurez docente darte cuenta de que tú también tienes el deber de “manejar esa atención adecuadamente”: tienes que enseñar de tal forma que lo que estés enseñando —sea lo que sea que estés enseñando— sea meaningful to them.

O sea: no te estoy enseñando esto meramente porque esté en el currículo y necesites la nota…

Te lo estoy enseñando porque esto es necesario aprenderlo para tu crecimiento personal pleno, a tí mismo como estudiante te conviene atenderme si es que quieres cumplir ese growthful dream que tienes dibujado en la pared…

Ese ese es, sin duda, el mejor “I love you” que puede pronunciar cualquier maestro: enseñar meaningfully… enseñar de tal forma que lo haga haciendo posible una formación personal ordenada no meramente a obtener ciertas notas, sino ordenada al crecimiento más pleno de sus estudiantes. Sea cual sea la nota, que esa nota sea obtenida convirtiéndote en la mejor persona que puedas ser mientras la obtienes.

Si se aspira a enseñar de esa forma, el lack of attention no puede considerarse un mero lack of following instructions, lack of obedience or lack of discipline. El estudiante tiene todo el “derecho” de exigir al maestro que enseñe algo que a él le interese o que le sea pertinente a su crecimiento pleno y a realizar sus sueños, en lugar de limitarse a enseñar solamente siguiendo un curriculo. O sea: el currículo tiene que tener cierta flexibilidad curricular o apertura intelectual, como le quieran llamar, para abarcar la variedad de “learning meanings” de los estudiantes.

Si se enseña growthfully, el lack of attention tiene mucho más que ver con lack of meaningfulness (sin excluir situaciones en que el lack of attention también pueda deberse a otros factores más técnicos, como discrepancia entre el estilo de enseñanza del maestro y el estilo de aprendizaje del estudiante, o por ADHD): el estudiante no se está dando cuenta de para qué necesita aprender eso para ser mejor persona y para cumplir sus sueños, así que sencillamente no le interesa prestarle atención a eso y se aburre. O sea: mas que buscar un “mindfulness” para resolver los issues de atención que presentan los estudiantes de hoy en día de forma crónica, lo que se debe buscar es un “growthfulness”, brindándoles una educación que sea person-affirming y que abarce toda su formación personal, incluyendo lo académico, pero no limitándose solo a lo académico, porque son personitas en formación, personitas con dignidad incluso cuando están en etapas tempranas de formación, y han de ser tratadas de acuerdo a su dignidad inherente, recibiendo no solo una educación apropiada (la ley de educación actualmente vigente en los Estados Unidos sí que requiere legalmente que se le brinde una educación apropiada a todo estudiante, pero limitándose solo a lo académico), sino un growthful education que no fragmente la naturaleza de su formación personal (si la escuela solo asume lo intelectual necesariamente va a fragmentar esa naturaleza; de ahí que en la escuela se ha de recibir formación y no solo instrucción) los prepare para la vida y para formarse para convertirse no solo como ciudadanos de bien de nuestra sociedad, sino también como la mejor persona que puedan ser.

Viendo la educación de esta forma —learning by forming— se entiende la importancia capital del dreamfull wall y de que que los maestros sepan exactamente que sueñan sus estudiantes ser, quienes quieren ser, what are the keys of their meaningful learning, porque la escuela es su beginning to be who they are y necesitan comprender como ese learning los articula como la mejor persona que puedan ser, as the person they are meant to be.

These had been some of my thoughts about a growthful philosophy of education. 

I kept thinking and contemplating through the whole evening until reaching to begin —totally unexpectedly— what I agreed and consented to do in the dream: a very good and consistent sketch of the Keys of a Growthful Philosophy of Education. 

Here is the sketch:

Yes, We Can Grow Best: Keys of a Growthful Philosophy of Education 

Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.

Mt 11,29

This text is dedicated to all my students. I have learned great things from you as we walked together through this growthful journey. You made a difference in my life, and I will forever thankful simply for who you are. This is only the beginning of the adventure.

I can´t begin this text without a thank you note to the Faculty of Education of the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus: to its Dean while I was there, who made a huge difference in my life, making possible my graduation of BA as Student Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and eventually agreeing to be in the only professional evaluation I had received as a teacher along my whole career… I am also thankful to my professor mentor in the ESL teaching department, Christina, and to my teacher mentor at the UPR Elementary Laboratory School, Richard, along with Elizabeth (the other professor of the ESL teaching department), all the other fellow professors along the faculty and also to all my classmates, who were all so inclusive to my learning diversity and made possible my learning to be.

Without the “learning to be” that all you made possible, the “becoming” that I am sharing in this text wouldn´t be possible. You will see that influence of the motto of the Faculty of Education in my text is quite evident:

“Aprender a ser, aprender a aprender, aprender a enseñar y aprender a emprender ”.

In English: Learning to be, learning to learn, learning to teach, learning to launch.

They don´t have the “learning to do” in their motto because there is no specific required class of class management (the discipline is the “learning to do”, and managing discipline in a classroom should be part of a class management class; without “learning to do” there couldn´t be “learning to teach” possible, any teacher knows this basic didactic premise: without discipline, there is no teaching possible) in the Faculty of Education, but they should have it, that is my only critique to the teaching formation I received there.

Thank you.

Introduction: what should have happened, but didn’t, and what should have happened, and it did: the value of the example

My professional experiences as certified teacher: special education 5-12 grade ESL Teacher in a private school in San Juan that was financed by the Department of Education funds (although the school was a private school, most students of that school were there as part of their PEI provided by the Special Education services of the Department of Education… and so, their monthly enrollment there was fully funded by the Department of Education of Puerto Rico); 7-12 grade religion teacher, 10-grade history of Puerto Rico teacher and grade 12 responsible parenthood teacher in a private Catholic School belonging to the Order of Preachers in Bayamón Puerto Rico; RAE English teacher of a Public School in Corozal; a public school that belonged to the Department of Education of the Government of Puerto Rico; PK-4 ESL teacher in a Catholic Parish School in the Archdiocese of San Juan.

Why I am not teacher right now: post traumatic effects after witnessing students being abused, extremely low salaries, pbeing always the outsider and what happened when I tried to enroll as ESL teacher in the Bayamon School Region of the Department of Education of Puerto Rico.

Relating briefly my experiences as teacher. The first determining experience as teacher that I will tell is the fact that as an exceptional learner myself, I was, of course, I had always been an exceptional teacher in my methodologies. I never have done things as people around me does them. This has not been only due me being a diverse learning and having ADHD and also being creatively giftedness at the same time. My ethics were also different than those around me.

Facing institutional abuse: the second most determing experience of my teacher career is that I faced gruesome abuse commited against my students and was able to sucessfully document and get proper legal evidence of such abuse happening, even if that required endure more abuse myself as teacher. I recopiled enough evidence to make possible that the abuse my students endured couldn´t happen ever again to anyone else inside any school grounds, and that was important to me as teacher. Teachers have the sacred duty to guarantee that the dignity of their students its respected at all times. If you truly want a student to respect you as teacher, you must respect him or her first unconditionally as person, and you must teach them to respect themselves as persons too, to learn to do things because they respect themselves enough to do things in the right way.

My conception of teaching as a profession: the second determining experience of my whole teaching career is my conception of teaching in the context of an apostolate of dignity and a personal formation charism, believing in receiving Christian Formation is not merely an “aditional class more among the other subjects”: it is a way to be, being a catholic teacher is a way to be, even if you teach in non-religious schools. In a Christian School, everyone is formed learning to walk together like He walked. Why the personal example as teacher matters as much as what you are teaching, the importance of giving living lessons along academic lessons and asume your social role model duty along your academic duties.

Part I: Foundations for a Growthful Philosophy of Education

-Integraction: a systemic personal formation model

–Science is the Desire to Learn: a Peircean intellectual ethics

Part II: Keys for a Growthful Philosophy of Education 

–cognitive assessment (learn to learn)

Every student should be cognitively assessed at least once per learning level (preschool, primary school, elementary school, middle school, high school) to be aware of his own cognitive style: how he or she memorize better, which are his or her cognitive strenghts, which are their best talents, in which professions they would perform better with those talents…

Teachers and mentors should also be very clearly aware of their cognitive styles, and they should also be properly assesed for this at least once every three years, discussing their teaching strenghts and how to overcome difficulties while teaching or mentoring students with diverse learning in relation to their own cognitive strenghts.

-Growthful curriculum (learning by forming)

Curriculum is necessary, but it should be an open learning curriculum that is able to embrace all “learning meanings” of all students.

Curriculum in a growthful school should not be merely academic: they should have, besides inclusing integractive sciences in their basic core classes, formative content too, like arts classes and sports. They should have proper time in their curricular learning time to also form themselves as the best person they can be, and formative classes can be chosen according to the student’s best interests (they can vary: not everyone in the school must take the same kind of art, it is possible to avoid it, students should be able to gave some flexibility in choosing their formative curriculum content).

Use of electronic media for curriculum: in my experience, it is good to have electronic books and printed workbooks for the students to use to practice, especially if an electronic board is available at the classroom. I had never been able to teach without technological assistance, so I am quite used to it. A healthy balance between technology and printed media should be reached when applyding curriculum: students do need to use books, but they do need also to use technology appropiately, and that is a healthy part of a formative school curriculum.

–Growthful classrooms [learning to teach, the classroom as a vivarium]

Classrooms should mimick the actual scenery of a growthfull society, having plenty of “creative and personal space” —a growthful classroom should not merely be an “academic space” only— to allow the best growth possible to happen, exactly as it should happen in a growthfull society.

–Growthfull Didactic (teachers as “growers”)

Teacher is not meant to only teach a subject: they are meant to teach their subjects in a way that is meaningful towards achieving a formation ordered to the best growth possible of their students. Both the what you teach and how you teach it matters for growthful didactics.

In a growthful didactic environment, no teacher can have more than 15 students: in order for a growthful education be able to happen, it is essential to be able to have a personal relationship with your students, and there is no human way that a teacher can establish a personal relationship if he or she has too many students assigned in his or her classroom. I know this poses a huge difficulty to certain schools that are overcrowded or that don´t have the physical capability to have enough classrooms to cover all their student´s enrollment if they only place 15 students per classroom. Eventually, this will require a whole architectural redesign of schools buildings, so classrooms can be designed to meet the specific needs of a growthful education… but for now, if a classroom has assigned more than 15 students, two teachers must work as team teachers in the same classroom. This also resolves a current huge assessment issue: if we are real, it is currently impossible that teachers can be able to make a proper graded assessment of their students if they are assigned more than 15 students per group. The reality is: the whole education system right now relies in the unpaid labor of teachers, both outside of laborable hours or outside school property. It is way too normalized that teachers are expected to take their ungraded work home and bring it graded to the school on time to meet the digital roll book school policy, that usually requires teachers to put their grades in the digital system of the school aroun three days after the evaluation date, but they give no proper time to the teacher to do that in school time, and it most times is actually impossible due the amount of students per group. Enabling an education system that requires unpaid work of teachers to function must stop. Teachers must be given appropiate size groups with which they can forge personal relations and that they can grade and assess properly within their regular working time period. Teachers are the only professionals that arrive early to their works, to being able to prepare their classrooms properly, then not having enough time to complete their work at working time, so they take their work to home, where they must also do —besides the extra work they brought because they were unable to complete it at school— the school work that was already planned to to at home, because they already know that working hours won´t allow them to do all the work, school administrators also know and everyone allows it to happen… so the teacher keeps awake until late, to keep up with the extra work and the already planned work to be done at home… simply to wake up even earlier the other day, and the whole trafficking cycle begins to happen again in the next day, in the same way, or even worst. That is dehumanizing, energy-draining, and even unhealthy for anyone. Teachers are being slaved with work they are not paid nor have enough time to do, and that must change. That change begins with reducing the class sizes immediately. If it is not currently possible to have enough physical classrooms to fit all the school students in 15-per-classroom classes, two teachers must be assigned to the same physical classroom and practice team teaching. Yes, that increases the cost of education, but it is already costing the lives and health of teachers —yes, in these circumstances, teaching can be considered a psychologically hazardous work environment, and someone like OSHA should notice such psychological hazards the same way they notice the chemical and physical hazards in work environments— and it also reduces the student learning capabilities heavily, especially in the assessment capability aspect, not only in the lack-of-personal-relation-with-the-teacher capability aspect. Use less federal budget for wars and give schools their proper, fully functional operational funding, without expecting teachers to fill the gap of your incompetence with unpaid labor and psychological hazards that lack of appropriate school funding creates for teachers. This goes to the Federal Department of Education: don´t slave teachers to fund your incompetence in budgeting what must be budgeted properly in any humanizing, legally, and ethically functional organization. Education is meant to be one of the biggest chunks in any federal budget; no surprises there, education literally is meant to form our future as a nation. That is what taxes are meant to be used for, in case you haven´t noticed: to form a growthful society for everyone, in the present and for generations to come, and that formation begins with families and schools, both public and private. Have you noticed that each generation is becoming more and more less educated and more and more bored in school? Well, do something before your incompetence destroys us all as the growthful nation we are meant to be.

In a growthfull teaching system, there would not be almost no substitute teachers, because the learning process is meant to be personal. That means: if a teacher needs an extended leave due, for example, family leave (due the birth of a baby or the adoption of a baby), well, yes, for extended leaves you need a substitute teacher that can stablish a personal relation with the student during that extended leave. But if we are talking about a one-day absence of a teacher, no substitute teachers should be expected in that circumstance, because for growthful learning to happen, there must be a personal relation between student and teacher, and no substitute teacher can substitute the personal relation of the regular teacher, if we are talking about short-term abscenses. So, when a teacher is absent, and we are talking about short-term absences, the school is meant to have a games room or a creative room —or both— and send the students there to have guided socialization time during that period in which the teacher is absent. A mentor can be sent with them to guide them. Learning socialization in school is important and should be an active part of their school formation. Also, it is very realistic that in no profession is someone expected to leave planned work for an unplanned absence —like becoming sick or needing to handle a personal or family issue— and it is unrealistic to expect teachers to need to leave planned work for their absences, they should be able to be absent like any other professional would, without having to have even more workload if they need to be absent due needing to create substitute plans.

The systemic extremely low salaries of teachers in the whole United States, especially if compared to other professionals who require similar professional formation and work schedules, must be corrected. Right now, the career of teaching can be considered modern human trafficking in the United States. The whole Education system relies on teachers’ unpaid labor. The federal government should not only pay teachers a fair salary but also give them SEEDS cards (like the seed funding that entrepreneurs receive when they launch a business) to fund their teaching needs in a proper, legal, and ethical way. Also, the summer period of the teachers should be a paid formative time so teachers can keep up with their professional development duties and formative development duties in paid time, also having the proper rest that a profession like teaching requires: if you expect a teacher needing to be generous in his or her time dedicated to parents meetings, school activities and all kind of other appointments during the academic year, besides their teaching duties, you should also expect them to have a generous paid summer time to compensate that extra availability through the academic year, exactly in the same way medical doctors are paid more for their 24 hrs shifts and nurses and caregivers are paid more for their 12hrs shifts. It is unacceptable that teachers need to seek second and even third jobs to be able to survive, besides also needing to fund their classrooms and students’ needs as part of their teaching needs. It is especially unacceptable that teaching has become the most family-incompatible career of all.

–Growthfull Assessment (learning to be)

Growthfull is not meant to be only quantitative (also known as traditional grading system). The growthful assessment must also be formative and progressive.

Formative assessment assess how the student is achieving to become the best person he or she can be through what they are learning. This is the “how” the learning should happen. Both what the student and how the student is learning it is important. This kind of assessment should be achieved with the collaboration of school mentors.

There is another kind of assessment that must be taken in account in a growthful education: the progressive assessment. This kind of assessment assesses which has been the degree of progress of the student since the last evaluation. Two students can get the very same grade, but one progressed way more than the other since the last evaluation, and that growth must be taken in count in a growthful assessment.

No student should required to be assessed through formal testing and formal academic grading in Pre-School (Pre-K and K) nor in Primary School (1-3) levels. Those years are the most important social formative years: what they learn socially during that period will shape most ofwho they are as citizens later. Academic testing at this period shouldn´t be assumed more important —as it is right now— than teaching the students the proper social notions of how to become citizens that serve the common good and aspire to learn to be who they are and also to become the best person they can be. At this stage, they must be only assessed for skills, including academic skills, focusing on getting the required skills for their appropriate developmental age, including social skills explicitly. The Japanese Education System is a tremendous good example of how the youngest learners must have a strong social formation focus first before beginning to be graded academically; that is part of respecting their proper formative development as persons, who they are as persons, and who they are meant to be as persons must be learned and assessed properly first before the formal academic grading system begins at grade 4 (Elementary level).

–Growthful learning (students as growthful seeds)

Students are in all their right to request a teacher to teach in a way that is meaningful to them. They should not be only required to memorize or retrieve information: they must also be able to give that instruction their own meaning, determining how that instruction can make them able to become the best person they can be and who they are meant to be according to both their own self-assessment and according to the formative assessment given through mentorship.

–Growthful discipline (learning to do)

Discipline, in growthful terms, is related with the student learning to self-assess himself and determine progressively by himself or herself which behaviours are most appropiate in order to him or her become the best personhe or she can be and who she or he is meant to be. This is what they should expect to be able to do in a growthful society: to act according to their best growth possible, learning to grow together as the best person we can be: yes, we can grow best!

We should not teach our students to behave according to minimums. Yes, norms are necessary, but they are the minimum expected, and they should be aimed and affirmed to reach their maximum potential, not merely the minimum.

Norms are necessary, but obeying is not the only necessary, and it is wrong to only ask them to obey norms: they must be able to have the freedom to self-assess (think by themselves) and self-determine —in a way that is appropiate to their developmental age— who they are and how to become the best person they can be, the best person they can be, growing together as “we, the people”. They have their right to get “creative freedom” as part of their discipline system and be allowed to learn to act in the school as they should behave in a growthful society.

Growthful Discipline Informs should be given regularly to the parents in order to let them know what the students are doing best in the classroom, which are being the strenghts in which they are progressin more at the current moment, and what is what they need to learn to do better at the current moment. Discipline informs should not be limited to only inform to the parents what the students do wrong.

Paraphrasing Randy Pausch: “Sometimes I think I got more from pursuing a dream, and not accomplishing it, than I did from many of the ones I did accomplish“. You can expect that students will “switch” dreams as they keep maturing, evolving, and progressing, and such changes are something to be expected: dreams can and will change over time, both in the what and in the how they are meant by them to be achieved.. Not all childhood dreams are meant to be achieved, but what they make learning possible at the moment they were present as the determinant of the students´growth objectives learning and as the purpose that guided the students behavior. Students will always need their dreams to a growthfull discipline be possible… and trust me when I say —because I have faced the three instances as a teacher— that there is nothing more sad than a student that is unable to have dreams, than a student who refuses to learn to dream by his or her own, or than a school that destroys the dreams of their own students. A growthful discipline is also meant to be a dreamful discipline.

Our students need to go through the process of both be corrected and correct themselves in an appropiate, growthful discipline way, so they are able to configurare their affective profile (their self-steem) appropiately. In words of Randy Pausch, describing his experience with futbol coaches:

“When you´re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they´ve given up on you.

That lesson has stuck with me my whole life. When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody´s bothering to tell you anymore, that´s a bad place to be. You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better.

There´s a lot of talk these days about giving children self-steem. It´s not something you can give; its something they have to build. Coach Graham worked in a no-coddling zone. Self-steem? He knew there was really one way to teach kids how to develop it: You give them something they can´t do, they work hard until they find they can do it, and you just repeat the process”.

–Growthfull mentorship (glowers) 

Besides having “grower” teachers, students need glowers: mentors who make possible for them to create their own project of life according to their own inherent dignity and creative freedom, in a way that is appropiate to their developmental age and growth stage. Traditional school systems only provide “extra help” to those who have deficits. 

In a growthful education that is person-affirming, every student is entitled to receive the appropiate “extra help” (called “growthful mentorship”) to make a meaningul learning possible and a true “learning by forming” posible. You don’t need to have behavorial problems to get “extra help” in growthful learning: you are entitled to it simply to help you to learn to be who you are and who you are meant to be and radiate the unique light you are called to radiate to our society and civilization (that is why mentors are the “glowers” and teachers are the “growers”. In a growthful education, all students must receive appropiate formative assessment (mentorship) to be able to learn how to be who they are and who they are meant to be.

Glowers would establish “growth objectives” systems parallel to the learning objectives systems already well established in current learning settings. They would help the students to project their learning as a part of their own life project, helping students to establish objectives and goals to achieve their dreams, establishing at the same time why those objectives and goals are pertinent to what they are learning in the classroom and how what they are learning in the classroom helps them to become better persons and who they are meant to be.

-Class planning (becoming)

The class planning system should not merely be organized to teach learning objectives properly: there must be also growth objectives that are determined according to the best interests of the students, simply to make possible that everyone can learn becoming the best person they can be.

The class planning system should embrace the whole personal formation of the student, making possible an integration, an action, a realization, a proyeccion and a connection of what is being learned.

I as teacher did this making a planning method of the first weeks of the month focusing in integraction, action and realization; the last week of the month would be the projection. The connection would be achieved as a group level, everyone shared the “fruits”of their learning to the school community in fairs or expositions.

–Parents and community (seeders)

Parents have the very grave responsability to form their children as the best person they can be. Teachers nor mentors nor anyone is meant to substitute their parental responsability: they are meant to support it appropiately.

This is especially important to be taken in count by the glowers: it is the parents —not the school— who determines the early formation of a student, the school duty is simply helping them to be able to achieve the best formation of their children as students of the schools. That means: the values that are taught at school —especially in the earlier stages of development, in which students are way deeper naturallydependant of their parents to know who they are and to become who they are meant to be— should be common civic values-based in the best personal growth of everyone in the school, without any kind of ideological agenda behind how the students are being formed, nor any other agenda that is not achieving the best growth possible of that student, both academically and as person-young citizen. 

A growthful formative fellowship must exist between the parents and the school, so there are no “formative discrepancies” between home and school. I repeat myself because this is important to be understood by both growers and glowers: they are not meant to substitute the parents’s formation, but make to the parents possible to provide their children a formation that makes them all able to become the best persons they can be. The school can provide regular growthful formative workshops to parents and community seeders too, so everyone can learn together how to form these children as the best person they can be.

–administración escolar (dirección as the “bloomers” of the school)

The role of a school administration, including the directors, is not micromanaging and controling everyone, but making sure to create a progessional and learning environment that makes possible the “blooming” of everyone in the school (that is why they are called “bloomers”). 

-growthful farmers: the auxiliary staff of the school (educational therapists, classroom aides, food workers —usually known as “lunch ladies”—, especial education aides, cleaning staff, school custodians, school social workers, school nurses and school administrative staff)

Please notice I am leaving the “school farmers” to the end of the exposition of all the components of a growthful educative system. They may be the most “simple” of all these components, but they are also the most important ones. No school can function properly without a fully well-formed and effective proper auxiliary staff. They are equally important to the growers, the glowers, the bloomers, the growers, the seeds, and the seeders. Their importance in today´s school is gruesomely neglected in many senses, including in the fact that they are not fairly paid nor given fair work benefits neither, especially the classroom aides and the school custodians, who may not need to study a college degree like glowers, bloomers and growers to be able to be hired in their positions, but they also desserve equal professional growth opportunities and all their fair due wage according to the cost of life, so they may also able to afford a dignified environment and even become glowers, growers or even bloomers if they receive the proper school support to get the appropriate academic formation if they are called to such professional transition. Specific scholarships should exist in Universities to make it possible for the farmers who feel called and prepared to do so to become growers, glowers, or even bloomers. Also, they should all be prepared to handle a classroom as farmer mentors if there is a need for some of them to supervise a classroom while a grower, glower, or bloomer can´t be able to supervise a student group. For example: if on a particular day the school has too many glowers and growers absent at the same time, there are too many student groups without supervision and the bloomers are not enough to assume such supervision appropriately —either being with the students in the creative room, in the game room or in the sports facilities… or any other designated area for students whose grower is absent— yes, farmers should be provided the needed formation to assume that duty satisfactorily in such circumstances, despite almost most of them not having a college degree. A professional post-secondary certification in growthful education can be designed for them (they would only need a high school diploma to access such certification) if they wish to accomplish that in a professional sense —besides also giving them the opportunity to study to become a grower, a glower or a bloomer eventually if they feel called and are prepared to do that in the undergraduate college level—, but it is the school itself that is meant to form its farming staff appropriately. This, de facto, already happens in schools: it is quite usual to see school secretaries, or even school nurses, substitute a teacher if there is no one else to supervise a group when too many teachers are absent at the same time). Schools are in immense debt to these auxiliary staff, and their crucial importance for a growthful philosophy of education to be able to be applied fully in a school environment should not be undermined, so I gave them the most important spot, the last one.

I still remember the name of the custodian of my primary school; she cared for us all so much; she gave me clean spare uniforms (the school had some spare uniforms for students who needed to change their uniforms while in the school) when mine became a huge dirt mess because I loved to play with dirt and to literally chase butterflies in the school garden: her name was Lucile. She also taught me to stop “trapping” butterflies because they would die, she taught me to enjoy the butterflies but also taught me to respect them as they are, to respect them being alive, not killing them unintentionally when I finally trapped one. I even remember they were white butterflies, and that later I was explained the metamorphosis process by a teacher (she explained it for the whole classroom, letting us see in an appropriate glass bowl —not like the vases I used when I tried to trap butterflies, this one was a bowl specifically designed for trapping insects humanely— the process of metamorphosis, from the caterpillar to the cocoon to the butterfly actually spreading the wings and let be free). I was still very small, probably in first grade (in the period all this happened, I belonged at that time to the classroom that was in the lower part of the primary school building, and that was the first-grade classrooms zone; as far as I remember second and third-grade classrooms were in the second floor, and the kindergarten classroom where in a whole different building, along the lunch room), but I already was an asker student (In Spanish: una estudiante preguntona… Peirce would say: an inquisitive student). I have always loved butterflies since I was a small child, and that school had plenty of them in certain zones of the gardens. Even the school custodian answered my questions and corrected me in an appropriate way (I was never penalized in the disciplinary sense for getting dirty due to insisting on chasing butterflies, nor for getting wet for splashing water and enjoying walking under the rain… but I was given spare uniforms by the custodian for not remaining wet or dirty during the whole academic day and was explicitly asked to learn to remain clean while I explored nature in the garden) for my age, especially when she saw me wandering around chasing butterflies, and she realized I was achieving to learn how to trap them with my hands and accidentally killing them without me even realizing yet that if they stopped moving in my hands or in the glass vases I put them, it was because I was killing them; she properly —and even tenderly, not in a penalizing, fear-inducing authoritative discipline way at all, in a very appropriate way for a way too-wandering first-grader— taught me to respect life and to respect nature, I and wasn´t allowed to trap them in vases nor in my hands anymore, but I could enjoy if a butterfly posed in my hands naturally, as I began to learn to observe them instead of chasing them.

I also knew the director of that school directly (we had the same names) and chatted a lot with her in her office: I learned from a very early age what proper respect for authority should be; true respect comes from a personal relationship and unconditional respect to the humanity of a person’s fist. I never had a single disciplinary issue with that director, I did have a single disciplinary issue in primary school due to beginning to scream when I shouldn´t, and I knew I shouldn´t. I was beside the stairs and all the students were messing around and screaming, I don´t remember right now why, but it wasn´t because we were scared for something, we were deliberating wanting to cause troubles and we chose to revolt, I have no idea of why now… and I knew I shouldn´t follow that behavior, but I simply chose to disobey the teachers who were trying to control the situation, and at the very same moment I began to scream hidden behind the stairs beside the direction office —I was very young, but clever enough to know I should hide to do what I was doing—, the head director arrived, and as I screamed and she searched for who was screaming that way, she directly me saw me doing what I was doing wrong, she took me by my hand and took me straight to the direction office besides other “unruly” (revoltosos) classmates that were doing the same… but at that moment the head director was an older one which I didn´t have a personal relation with, that older director was a quite authoritative one. The other director, the one I had a personal relationship with, at that moment, was an auxiliary director, and became very surprised to see me in the office for a disciplinary issue… and as you may realize, I never dared to repeat any kind of disciplinary issue again, especially when she became the head director, I truly respected her because I knew who she was as a person. I would have a huge issue, but not a disciplinary issue, in third grade, that would eventually cause my progenitors to change me of school, probably to avoid their abuse being discovered, because the school did call them to inform them that something was wrong with me in the emotional sense and they were unable to understand exactly what was wrong with me because they seemed “responsible parents”… No one in that school —nor no one else in their sane minds— would be able to even imagine the kind of abuse I was going through at home, not even myself as a child was conscious of the gruesome emotional neglect and abuse of my own progenitors, although I did know something was wrong between my progenitors and I: I wrote in a whole third-grade test “my parents don´t love, I want to be with God; I want to die”. I was sent to the office immediately after the teacher realized what was going on, with the teacher evidently shocked while the whole thing happened. Everything began when my classmates realized I was doing the test with the book opened in my lap and began to call me a “cheater”, but I didn´t see the book at all; I claimed to the teacher, scared and crying that I wasn´t copying, I was crying for other reasons, I haven´t realized the open book was in my lap, and then she saw what I wrote in the tests besides the correct answers I did learn to do by own… and the teacher, called Lisa Torres, did know I was the kind of student who didn´t need to copy for being able to pass a test academically, but she was absolutely disturbed when she saw what I wrote in my test borderlines. We both went —me crying; she seriously concerned— immediately to the office, and no one was able to realize exactly what was wrong, why I felt too “unloved” having such parents. Yes, I was cared for by others who were paid to care after school, but as far as the school knew, there were no signs of physical abuse happening at home. They —nor I myself— would be able to realize then the gruesome and devastating psychoeducative effect that parental emotional neglect and abuse can have on a young child.

Of course, students are also meant to have a personal relationship with the school farmers. They should know their custodians and aides by name; they should know all their farmers by their proper name. There can be sessions in which they are integrated explicitly into the classroom environment in a didactic way like it would happen —for example— if a custodian goes to a classroom to read a book to kindergarteners. Students can also be asked to help this staff in certain tasks if is a part of their proper personal formation expected for their age, as it would be asking high schoolers to learn how to trim the grass along the custodians, not for doing the custodian job, but to learn how to do it by themselves when they become independent citizens. It could also be asked middle school students to help the custodians with some cleaning duties so the students can learn to be properly responsible for their environments. Farmers, all of them, no matter if they have a college degree or not —you may expect some kind of farmers, like social workers, librarians, and school nurses, to have a college degree; but of course, other kinds of school staff, like cleaning staff and school custodian won´t usually have a college degree— are a direct part of the personal formation of the students inside school grounds, they are not “accessory parts” of a growthful education philosophy—: they are hugely necessary part of making a growthful school able to function integractively and of students learning the art of empathy socially, learning to not look absolutely anyone as their inferior or as their superior: in the school, yes, it should be learned and assume there are different social roles —exactly like it happens in a real-world society—, some with more academic or administrative authority than others, but still, in a school, one of the most important lesssons to be learned by students and all personel inside of it is to learn to see and treat everyone as an equal brother and sister, including their farming staff. I would dare to say: especially the farming staff. Their crucial importance right now is way neglected and overlooked.

I will give a practical example of this: I had never known of anyone in the Faculty of Education researching the importance of the custodian role in a school setting. The importance of school nurses, librarians, and social workers has been studied and even discussed academically… Yes, in my classes as a teacher-student of the Faculty of Education of the University of Puerto Rico, we did learn the proper importance of such staff, they were explicitly mentioned in our classes… but you see no one researching academically the importance of all the school farmers, not only the importance of those with college professional formation or professional certifications required. Especially the farmers who don´t require a college degree, they are treated like accessories and even almost accidental parts of the school system, and they are even more unfairly unpaid than the teachers —who are already severely underpaid— and have almost no benefits at all, besides absolutely never being given the opportunity to progress in order to their fullest growth possible and prepare to become a grower, a glower or eventually a bloomer if they are called and equipped to do so. The real-world fact is that not anyone can be allowed to work on school grounds; no matter what your role is in a school, you must have a teaching and a “formator” vocation (in Spanish: “formador“), no matter which role you professionally assume in the school. Ask any teacher with some real-world teaching experience about the crucial and essential differences that farmers make in their everyday teaching performance, and they will corroborate very accurately what I am saying. No one realizes this with all their consequences: farmers are also an essential part of a true learnign environment, and that applies to a growthful classroom too.

I shared some early life experiences I have shared simply as a dear example in my own memory about why teachers are totally unable to teach, and schools are totally unable to function growthfully, without the proper auxiliary staff formed properly and functioning effectively in the same growthful way that bloomers, glowers and growers are expected to treat and respect all students´ current personal formation processes according to their own developmental stage and cognitive capabilities, and this is especially true in exceptional education circumstances.

-Fraternizers and the issue of bullying

As a survivor myself of bullying throughout my whole school lifetime, I think the issue of bullying is serious enough in our school systems to be assumed in a specific concrete way like I am doing as I assign to the issue a whole section of the growthful philosophy of education. Enduring school bullying can be one of the cruelest, most gruesomest, most traumatic things for a student or anyone on school grounds —be aware: bullying to a teacher, either if it comes from students or from fellow teachers, or even from the school administration, can also happen; I have also had to survive that kind of bullying too— to endure, and it has even caused suicides. So, let´s assume this issue in a specific way, with all the seriousness and intellectual rigor it requires.

I have made allusion to this before, but I am going to mention it explicitly again here: one of the biggest social lessons a student —and all the school staff along them— is called to learn in a growthful school setting is that in a society, in the same way that should happen in the school, we are all equal brother and sister with a human dignity to be unconditionally respected as persons…

But, as you may expect, if the educative system is the first one that systematically doesn´t respect the personal formation of the students first, the students will be totally unable to learn in school how to respect themselves and other as equal brothers and sisters with an unconditional dignity to be respected. If they don´t learn it in school, a growthfull fraternity won´t happen in the society neither. That is why we have a society with far too many cruel adult bullies wandering around: they weren´t correct when they should have been corrected, and in adulthood the bullying issue is far harder to correct. Then you see intolerant leftist people who constantly sabotage and bully those who doesn´t agree with their idea, doing if with tremendous psychological agressiveness, when not also using physical social violence (violent riots to impose their ideological agendas). As Martin Luther King Jr says, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools”. That growthful fraternity learning begins at schools, and this is what will end the current bullying epidemic from its roots, not merely with a bunch of punitive disciplinary meassures.

No one in a school will be able to learn to be fratenal if the educative system itself is not meant to be person-affirming first, and now I am talking about a person-affirming educative system that affirms EVERYONE (including its employees, not only the students) as who they are and as who they are called to be. This requires a huge transformation of the current notions of what an education system should be. Right now, they are currently seen as the administrators. No, they are the fraternizers. They are the ones who actually make a growthful fraternity be implemented as an educative policy in a school-wide sense.

Of course, administrative aspects of such fraternizing duty must be assumed… but first and foremost, a school district and a school education department are meant to be the systematic fraternizing element of a school: they are the ones who set the fraternal tone that grows schools need to function. That implies a lot, from paying their employees fairly and having a humanizing workplace environment to actually providing the students with all the growth opportunities that belong to them according to their all-due rights as persons, students, and citizens.

This is imperative to be understood in a growthfull philosophy of education: students must be able to learn in school grounds that everyone is an equal brother and sister, with an inherent dignity that must be respected unconditionally… but how on Earth they will be able to learn that if the only interest of the school districts, and the only economical support they provide to, are for standarized tests and to whatever is required by law, doing only the bare minimum by law instead of creating an education system that aims for making possible the maximums, so students themselves can know not only the proper academic content but also how that academic content is meaninful towards them realizing their dreams and become tho they are and who they are called to be, the best person they can be?

The school districts and the own Departments of Education are the first one defraternizing, depersonalizing and dehumanizing education with their obsession in standarizing testing focus. You need a growthful focus to be able to let students learn how to recognize each one as an equal and dignified brother and sister in a systemic way, in the same way the school district makes possible that a growthful fraternity happens systematically along the whole school district as the students also are given the tools and growth choices to achieve all their proper academic development too.

No one saw this coming: the first responsible ones for the bullying epidemic in our society and schools are the school districts and the Department of Education themselves, not the schools, not the teachers, not the parents, and, of course, not the students neither. If the students are unproperly educated systemically, you may expect them to behave unproperly in a systemic way too. If the school district and the state-wide or even federal-wide Department of Education doesn´t have an explicit growthful fraternity educative policy itself… well, guess what, of course, you will be seeing very serious issues along the district in relation with the students —sometimes even among gloomers, bloomers, glowers and farmers also— being totally unable to unconditionally see each other as the equal brothers and sisters we are all meant to be… and they will be totally unable also to respect each other and themselves unconditionally as they are and as who they are called to be, as the best person they can be. So, either the parents take disciplinary punitive measures to try to correct the issue by themselves, modeling their sons and daughters’ behavior at home in the same way it should be modeled at the school… or a gruesome systemic de fraternizing bullying issue will be evident to see to anyone who has the wide-angle-vision to see it.

Yes, teachers are quite tired of being assumed as the direct responsibles of the bullying issues in the classroom. They aren´t. Of course, glowers, bloomers and growers must be expected to take active inmediate meassures when bullying is found to be happening, but they are not the responsible ones of bullying happening systemically in a school or a school district or a state-wide Department of Education. Educative professionals had been even fired due issues of this nature that didn´t directly belonged to them to deal with in a systemic way in the first place. Not even the schools are the direct responsibles of the bullying epidemic issue —nor of any other defraternizing issue that may happen in a school district, like being gruesomely underpaid and having to endure human trafficking professional features if you want to become a teacher— . The whole bullying issue root, the direct responsibles for bullying or any other defraternizing issues happening at a school —for example: if there is racism issue in the school happening, that can be another very real possible defraternizing issue in a school, even if it only happens implicitly—, are the school districts and the state-wide Department of Education, if they don´t assume with all the practicalities it requires an explicit person-affirming educative philosophy and an explicit growthful fraternity educative policy. Fraternity begins as a systemic policy, and then it becomes a social habit in students as they see it through the whole educative system leadership. Without unconditional fraternal leadership —leadership that is unconditionally fraternal first, respecting unconditionally as persons (with all that implies) those who are under your supervision first, instead of being authoritarian first and commanding obedience only upon your career position first— in a school educative system, there is no fraternization possible among the students neither.

Randy Pausch gives a very accurate description of what I am describing as “fraternal leadership”:

There is this skill set called “leadership”.

I learned so much by watching this guy in action. He was the distilled essence of the dynamic manager, a guy who knew how to delegate, had the passion to inspire, and looked good in what he wore to work. He never professed to have skills greater than his subordinates. He acknowledged that they knew what they were doing in their domains. But he established the vision, the tone. He was in charge of morale.

I will now pharaphrase a Randy Pausch phrase that should be the “educative mantra” of any educator in a fraternizing leadership position: “I don´t believe in a no-learning scenario“. That is especially to be applied to those students who learn in an exceptional way, as we are going to explain further in the next section.

-An Exceptional Way to Be (concrete considerations for a Growthful Exceptional philosophy of Education)

No student should be expected to learn exactly in the same way, and that is why assessment must be quantitative, formative, and progressive, departing from the grounds of a good cognitive assessment that gives everyone the idea about which the cognitive strengths of the students and which the student learning style are. Special education students, here named and known as “exceptional students”, because this is not a matter of them being “disabled to learn”, but them being able to learn in an exceptional way. Everyone should be considered able to learn if given the appropriate growth opportunities to do so according to their own concrete personal formation being bioma. The stigma of being told you have a disability is disabling by itself is real: no one wants to be mainly known and identified by what they are not able to do, nor is socially healthy to do so. Their PEIs should state clearly not only their deficits but also their strengths and which are their aspirations, and dreams. Each student has their own way of being, and that is all right and even a healthy thing to happen inside school settings because that is how it should happen in a growthful society.

It is especially important to cater to exceptional students’ specific learning needs, especially in the direction of teach them how to reach their most independent learning possible. They need to know what they are capable of doing independently, developing the use of coping systems and the use of their own best skills and strenghts to compensate their deficits. If that requires a particular assistance or reasonable accommodation, it should be provided without hesitation, not only according to the law but also always looking for the best interest of the student, even if such assistance may require to need an especial educative assistant (also known by the code “T1” in the Puerto Rican Department of Education system) in the classroom to aid the teacher. T1 and all learning specialists who provide therapies for special education students are an essential part of the Exceptional Education scenario, and they also should be paid a fair salary for their services.

-Discite a me: concrete considerations for a growthful Christian philosophy of education

the best person that can a student become as a Christian is a saint, so we should expect and teach sainthood and sacramental fraternity to all Christian students whose parents deliberately chose a Christian-Catholic school to give Christian formation to their children.

Parents should not only expect better, more personalized education at Christian school settings: they should also expect Christian formation be given in the school in a very “organic way”, not only in a Faith Education class, but in what all the teachers in the school live and “preach” in the way they teach, that in a Christian School must be both person-affirming and Christ-centered. 

A Christian schooling system should never be used to force a particular articulation to the student. It is supposed that if a student is enrolled in a Catholic or Christian school, the student also receives Christian formation at home, so there is no “forced articulation” in the fact that the school gives specifically Christian personal formation… but in the cases in which the student does not have a Christian denomination or the student is not Catholic, the school should not enforce in the student a Christian articulation of life if the student doesn´t chose to: the student will be present in the Faith Formation class along all the other students, but in such circumstances, the student can´t be expected to practice the faith in class and must be only evaluated by the religious facts that should be learned by all students. Never, absolutely NEVER, use a Christian school system or a Catholic educational system to enforce a Christian articulation to a non-Christian student; the school must know this when the student is being accepted and have the appropriate measures to deal with those exceptional circumstances in a respectful way towards the student´s own life articulation. If a student articulation is such extremely opposed to a Christian-Catholic articulation of life, the student should not be admited to the school in the first place, a Christian-Catholic school should be the first one to recognice their limits in such circumstances and a personal interview with the student should be made to have a explicit consent to such different articulation to be possible to happen, if the student is mature enough to give such consent (elementary level and beyond; first communion age and beyond).

The huge importance to be humble enough to learn how to teach like Jesus does: discite a me… The Jesus Charity I began to contemplate at the same time I began to research observing learning dynamics in real classrooms and observing how my students needed to learn in order to become the best person they cold be… well, He, a Jesus Charity, would eventually become my very first example as teacher. Paraphrasing the last scene of the movie “A Beautiful Mind,” He eventually became all my reasons and my only reason that made it possible for me to learn among all the circumstances I had to endure as a teacher, to teach from Him, learning to teach like He does, humble and meek of heart. This text nor my whole teacher career wouldn´t be possible to be articulated with a growthful focus in all the education perspectives possible —cognitive assessment, growthful curriculum, growthful classrooms, growthfull didactics, growthfull assessment, growthful learning (growthful pedagogy), growthful discipline, growthfull mentorship, growthful planning, growthful seeders, growthful bloomers, growthful farmers, growthful exceptionalities…— without His help, as I learned with the help of the Holy Spirit to incarnate His best-known biblical lesson about how learning and teaching are called by Him to happen: learn from me, who am humble and meek of heart…

That biblical quote had been very well plasmated in my heart through all these teaching years, and also now, as I begin to conclude this text: discite a me…

-A Growthful Healing: Concrete Considerations Related to Facing Institutional Abuse in Educational Environments

In this section of the text, it will be discussed explicitly a growthful way to deal with something that no Faculty of Education prepares anybody to deal with, including their legal implications: how to deal with institutional abuse when it happens within a school or even within a school district.

A teacher has the deontological duty to act if a pattern of institutional abuse against her or his students is evident: in such particular circumstances, all the measures needed to document properly and prove the institutional abuse in courts must be taken, both in the most systematically way possible and in the most safely way possible toward the students and abuse victims implicated. If a teacher or any other educational professional is proven to not act upon institutional abuse, their teaching license or any other professional license must be terminated immediately after all the evidence shown at a fair administrative process proves —the teacher should be given the opportunity to explain himself or herself if he or she feels it necessary— that they actually failed to act upon institutional abuse or even committed it directly and deliberately. Let´s be clear on this: abuse —any kind of abuse— can´t be tolerated in our schools, nor anywhere in a growthful society.

A growthful healing process must be made possible for the students and educational professionals who endured or witnessed without being able to do anything such abuse. The time of merely reacting institutionally upon abuse as “image washing” the schools and school districts instead of openly recognizing when things went wrong is over. Keeping a good image is not more important than taking all the measures that must be taken to guarantee that all the involved students and educational professionals can learn and teach in a safe, nurturing, and humanizing educational environment that embraces their dignity in all the senses applicable to the circumstance.

What a growthful healing process means is simply to make it possible for all the abuse victims involved the growth opportunity to keep growing on after the abuse they endured. Lessons must be learned. Changes must be made. Life must keep growing in the most growthful way possible for everyone, especially for the victims of institutional abuse.

–Conclusion: Learning to launch a growthful society

-Lo que pasa primero en la escuela en lo pequeño, sucederá después en la sociedad a lo grande. A growthful society begins at schools.

Importance of teaching unity of being and act for achieving the best personal formation possible of the students, both academically and personally, giving equal importance to what is being done (the be of the learning process) and how it is being done (the act of the learning process) and teaching them to always aim at school to become the best person they can be, instead of merely aiming to only get the best grades they can get, no matter what the mean for achieving that is… sign, meaning and the process of signification are all important, because when they become citizens at 18, no one will tell them what to do, they must be able to learn from school how to behave in a society being citizens of good who aim to their best and not merely acting to obey minimums (the laws). You have a unique light to give to this humanity, a unique apportation to give to your country as you, student, learn to “vivir el encanto”: your achievement of your best growth possible is the very first apportation anyone should learn to give to their family and homeland, and that “growthfull apportation” is equally important to your country to the taxes you are required to pay according to your income. No children in school can be required to pay taxes, but at that developmental age they do should be required and expected to “apport and serve their country” becoming the best person they can be during their most intense formative years of their life. That way, everyone would receive an equal opportunity to reach the truest American Dream: becoming together the best persons we can be, the best “we, the people” we can be, growing together in communion.

Randy Pausch: “Tenacity is a virtue, but it is not always crucial for everyone to observe how hard you work at something”.

Randy Pausch: “Brick walls are there for a reason. They´re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something [… and] sometimes, the most impenetrable brick walls are made of flesh”. Yes, the systemic abuse of my progenitors had been an impenetrable brick wall for me… but I had always had teachers who also made me able to learn how to dream, who I am and who I am called to be as a part of a “we, the people”.

“I Have a Dream” (We Have a Dream) Martin Luther King Jr Speech

“If you can dream it, you can do it.” Walt Disney Yes, we are truly meant to learn how to launch a growthful society we dream to belong together, as a new “we, the people” able to fully consummate the new American Dream: becoming together the best persons we can be, the best nation we can be. Such a launch really begins at schools. NASA may not hire “social engineers” for their launches, but yes, our society does need to train and hire “social engineers” for our schools in order to be able to truly launch, together, the growthful society we are meant to be, in a whole new integractive way, with the very same novel meaning and implications that Christopher Colombus had when he discovered a whole new world. What we are now “discovering” is the end of the colonization era and the beginning of a new era of new fraternization, in which we become to be formed to walk together as the brothers and sisters we are called to be, as the new civilization of Love we are called to be (this is being written both in the 40 anniversary of Saint John Paul visit to Puerto Rico and also in the “Día de la Hispanidad, when the discovery of America is celebrated, I think you should know that). Paraphrasing Walt Disney: If we can dream a new society, if we believe that a new growthful society is possible… we can do it… we can BE it. As I taught to my students: Puerto Rico is known as the “enchantent island”… but the enchantment of Puerto Rico are not their beautiful beaches, or any other outsanting touristical feature among the many we have as an island. The living enchantment of this island is you, as you become the best person you can be, we are all as Puerto Rican citizens to “vivir el encanto” (that was the title of the art exposition I prepared for my student´s art work, in which I was also meant to share for the first time a “Jesus Charity” that would eventually change my life forever, as I explained in the Discite a Me section).

“A lot of professors give talks titled “The Last Lecture”. Maybe you´ve seen one. It has become a common exercise on college campuses. Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can’t help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?” Randy Pausch (page 3) This text´s nature truly is a “last living lecture” to my students, because in it you can see what mattered most to me as their teacher, whatever class I would be teaching: to them be able to become, in its due time, the best person they could be. This is the most important lesson I always strived to teach my students: “Yes, we can grow best!”

I should clarify a few practical observations I was given in contemplative prayer towards the process of writing philosophical texts before ending this post.

The first one of such practical observations —this was more a warning than a mere practical observation— is that I should stick to what I chose to do during my time as a teacher. We all know we went through a lot when I was a teacher. I should not focus on what happened around me and not even mention it, except in the case that mentions it is really necessary to understand what I chose to do and what I am exposing in the philosophical text. Thats it. I should not let the text be distracted by traumas that should be left in the past, keeping what matters: what I chose with the time that was given to me. I was explained this with the words of Gandalf to Frodo that you can see in the following scene of Lord of the Rings:

Other practical advice that I was given for writing a philosophical text is that I should avoid copy-pasting at all costs. I can´t do copy-paste the ideas of others, even if I think that they can express them better than I can. I must go through the process of learning to express ideas philosophically with my own words, quoting whatever bibliography I want, but not copy-pasting anyone, no matter how better I think they can express.

Other practical advice I was given is that I should have accessible a reading that is not related to my writing at all, a reading that is simply used for mind breaks. It is important to “treat the mind” properly in the biological sense while writing philosophically and have mind breaks. I bought this book simply to enjoy it later, but now I am going to use it for mind breaks, I truly love the lessons it conveys.

Regarding the biological implications of the writing process, I was also recommended to have routines to let my body get used to the writing process (usually, I walk a little bit before writing, and I always drink a coffee and pray a rosary when I begin to organize ideas for the day). And… no matter how hungerless I may feel due to using Adderall, I must make my snacks and hydrate at the appropriate time; I am not allowed to simply keep writing and skipping snack time or stop drinking liquids to avoid “losing time going to the bathroom.” How to handle my attention is also important: if I know my attention keeps focused as I keep focused on adoring Jesus Charity with all my growth as I am writing, I should begin each writing day with a kiss to the last Sunday Gospel and keep a rosary nearby to adore Him as I am writing (I kiss the rosary constantly). How each person handles their attention varies, but that is what works for me.

I must be aware that writing a philosophical text is not only sitting down and writing as it happens to narratives. Thinking philosophically requires a great effort in terms of organizing ideas, reasoning in an appropriate way, and expressing them in an appropriate way. I am not writing a novel; I must “restrain” intellectually to what I am meant to be doing in each section and how I should be reasoning in each section. Some are narrative sections (mostly the introduction and a little bit of the conclusion). Several are quite analytic sections (especially the ethics part). Most are “expositive reasoning” sections: I am meant to expose my philosophical reasoning logically and coherently in most parts. All require a certain degree of philosophical creativity, to one extent or another. The first one to learn to respect my own “philosophical voice” is myself. How much I am progressing is not to be determined by myself, that part must be discussed together before proceeding to the next part.

Yes, I should enjoy what I am doingbecause it is a work of Love, not merely an intellectual adventure.

So, now you know, the Holy Spirit will keep surprising us all —including me— in unexpected ways. Now, in a totally unexpected way, you can expect a new text for November 1, 2024. It is a realistic date to complete this. This is the Day of All Saints, and it is a beautiful day to share this: there is no better lesson to your students than teaching them how to become saints, that is the best person you can be as aChristian.

Enjoy this as much as I am enjoying this! 🫶🏼

Let’s keep choosing to grow together in communion…