“To hold a pen is to be at war.” – Voltaire
Many leaders in education don’t like when people vent. They especially dislike complaints about what’s going on. Often, there is a fear that negative emotions will take over. The negative feelings will cover up all of the positive things that are happening. While negativity can rule the day, ignoring issues can leave them unaddressed. There are a lot of good things happening even in some of our toughest schools right now. However, we cannot ignore the issues that plague them. Ignoring problems doesn’t solve problems. When it comes to talking about the issues, there is a difference between venting and processing. Venting is just needing to get all of your anger and frustrations out. The goal is to let all of your emotions out about something. Processing is where you sort out what is happening with the intent to try and bring about change. Some issues in the classroom are national issues, and some things are out of our control. The issues that are in our control, we should do everything in our power to correct. Processing is venting put into action. We have to move beyond just complaining about issues, to looking into how we can make them better.
Growing up, I always wanted to see more of the world. The furthest west I had been was Atlanta, Georgia. Keep in mind, I grew up in Georgia. I always hated that I hadn’t been to that many places. That has changed. Now that I have the means to travel more, I have. One of the places I have always wanted to visit was Alaska. I had the opportunity to do so last summer. I know I have been posting about this trip for a while, but I took over 2,000 photos. All of them turned out great to me, so I want to keep sharing them. I captured these photos while we were visiting Skagway, Alaska. We took a train ride on the White Pass and Yukon Route. This train follows the old gold rush route from 1896. On the train, you can see where the walking path ended. They built the railway to go further into the Yukon. Here are just a few of the shots I captured while on the train.
Through Griffin's Lens 