If Wordsworth Were Principal

Put a romantic poet in charge of a school today, and what would happen? Sam Intrator, author of Teaching with Fire: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Teach, suggested to his audience that a poetic viewpoint might be just the restorative needed in an age when so many demoralized educators leave their profession within their first few years.

Just as Wordsworth would have celebrated the innocence of childhood and rejected being turned into a technician, educators must seek a sense of balance and remember why they entered the profession. "Ultimately the vocation of teaching is hopeful, triumphant, and eminently high-stakes," he said. Intrator urged educators to seek both self-renewal and institutional renewal. "Teaching is a rough-and-tumble way of living out your one wild and precious life," he said.

Read Intrator's article "The Engaged Classroom" in Educational Leadership.
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