Somewhere in the middle of the Foo Fighters show in D.C. this month, Dave Grohl stopped playing and asked 41,000 people to make some noise for teachers (it was a lot of noise). His mother, Virginia, taught in Fairfax County public schools for 35 years. She died in 2022. Then he played "The Teacher," which he wrote for her.
Our kids went back to school this month, into rooms run by people whose job is to know more than they do and pass it on. Except that isn't really the job. Think about the teacher you remember fondly. Odds are it wasn't the one who knew the most. It was the one who made it safe to ask questions, get something wrong, change your mind, and try again.
And then school ends. Nobody assigns you a teacher anymore. Suddenly you're the person people bring questions to. The one who's supposed to know. You can spend years being the person with the answers without noticing how long it's been since you had to learn something new.
So here's our back-to-school question:
When's the last time you were the student?
If it's been a while, here are a few places to start ⬇️
Hosted at the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond. A community of entrepreneurs learning from each other out loud. A founder brings a real problem and the room helps.
Over 100 classes and tours this fall: birding, floral design, botanical illustration, fermentation.
field trips🌻
Stalking in the Floral Industry
We spent a day with florists talking about safety, stalking, and what their industry needs. Then they built an installation together. Put people who are good at the same thing in a room and give them something to make.
Duck Fest with the Autism Society of Central Virginia
We brought rubber octopi to a duck festival, which felt like the appropriate amount of species confusion. We ran out. Inflatable tentacles also made their public debut. No regrets.
Orchard House
We spent an afternoon listening to the teachers and staff at a middle school for girls here in Richmond. Schools have a way of becoming characters in their own stories: what's on the walls, where people gather, what gets saved, what gets changed, the places everyone knows without needing to explain them. We learned a lot about Orchard House from its teachers. We learned something from the house, too.
next on the schedule
The Current: Value Added, Where Mission Meets Reality
Wednesday, October 21, 3:00–5:00 PM Libbie Mill Library, Henrico Free, space is limited
Nonprofit leadership isn't hard because people don't care. It's hard because they do, and real decisions put mission, staff, board, budget, and community in competition with one another.
Dr. Heather Prather, organizational psychologist and founder of WiseUp Coaching & Consulting, is joining us for this one.
Ryan Beatty, "Secret Language," off Sweet Fortune. Some months you get one song and that's it. This was the one.
Magpie Murders: Cozy British murder, Lesley Manville, a book inside a book.
Elizabeth Strout, The Things We Never Say: Booker longlist. A teacher with a wife, a son, and decent friends, none of it touching the thing he actually needs to say.
one more thing
We learned while writing this that Dolly Parton died. There are a hundred things you could say about her, but for a newsletter about teachers, this one seems right: her father couldn't read or write. She saw what it cost him, started the Imagination Library, and spent thirty years putting books in the hands of children she'd never meet.
Some of the people who teach us know they're doing it. Some never will.
here's to the school year, whatever your version of one looks like... .
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