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The Message Was: We Must Win At All Costs. One Teacher Chose To Take Another Path And Changed A School’s Culture

In the situation, would you have chosen to be, a Putin, or a Gandhi? The clock ticks…

Maria Rattray
4 min readMar 6, 2022
winning at all costs
Photo by Jeffrey F Lin on Unsplash

Microcosm: the word means: a community, place, or situation regarded as encapsulating in miniature the characteristics of something much larger.

My belief is that all classrooms must be viewed as a microcosm of the real world. Their values should reflect peace, fairness, inclusion, and caring.

And if that is the case, then the story I share below, should serve as a salutary lesson.

Annual sports carnival

Our annual sports carnival was looming. I choose the word looming because most of us hated some aspects of it, one being the lead up, the team-building, the choosing of house captains, and the chants.

If you were elected captain, it was your job to write chants for your team, to be used on the day to ramp up cheering, and promote a determination to win.

We must win at all costs was the not-so-subtle message conveyed to all the students in our teams.

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Maria Rattray
Maria Rattray

Written by Maria Rattray

Writer, author, teacher, fun-loving poet. Trying valiantly to make the world a better place. Helping you to guide the future. Find me at: https://ponmyword.com

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