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I found the role model to inspire me to handle such situations with more grace, maturity, and, most important of all, results...
I reread Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and I realized I had found my hero in Atticus Finch...
It hit me like a thunderbolt. You see, Atticus knows everything Huck knows. He knows society is racist. He recognizes the violence, hypocrisy, injustice, and ignorance of society. He knows he is going to lose.
But Atticus does not light out for the territory. He goes into the courtroom to fight the fight as best as he can, because it is what he believes in. He doesn't do it because of the law, or the rules, or what people will think. He has his own code, and he lives by it as well as he can.
I still cry when I think about this. My classroom is my courtroom. I am going to lose more than I win. There are many times when, despite my efforts, I will lose children to poverty, ignorance, and, most tragically, a society that embraces mediocrity...
I've made plenty of mistakes since rediscovering Atticus, but I've always been able to hold my head up to my students. Atticus showed me the way.
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