Mary’s Minute
“Do the best you can
until you know better. Then when you
know better, do better.”
~ Maya Angelou
Whether in our
thoughts or actions we strive to do our best, but Maya Angelou reminds us that
even best is a relative term.
In education we
sometimes face parents who question educational changes, by saying, “If it was
good enough for me, it is good enough for my kids.” Fortunately, in education, like all fields,
we continue to learn so that educational opportunities for each generation are
better than the one before.
A few centuries ago
there were credible doctors who mocked the idea of invisible
germs floating in the air,
with sterile surgery being just a little over 150 years old. The advances in cancer treatment are remarkable,
and we are grateful for the changes. In
1970 when we lost my aunt to breast cancer, her family and the doctors were
doing their very best to save the young mother, but they couldn’t. Today I am confident her prognosis would be
different. Today we know better, so we do
better.
When
we think that today is just the five-year anniversary of gay marriage being
legal in the United States we may be a bit sad that it took so long, but thankfully
now we know better so we can do better.
We
can be sad about our country’s past. I
see the good in people, so even people who looking back were doing horrible
things, like slave owners, were in many cases doing the best they could. But today we know better – we know much
better, so we can do better.
At
every point in our lives and in the history of our country we must strive to do
our very best, but the good thing is that our best will not stay the best for
long because when we know better, we can do better!
Let’s do better!
Mary
No comments:
Post a Comment