I believe book three is where we have a choice on the book we could read.  I have chosen The Long Haul: An Autobiography of Myles Horton by Judith Kohl & Herbert Kohl. I'm hoping others have chosen this book as well because I have such mixed emotions about it and I'm going to be looking for others to help me sort them out. 

Initially, I was overwhelmed by the passion and didication that Myles Horton had for his vision.  I wondered how many individuals have the opportunity to live out thier passion as Horton did?  I think I had a preconceived idea that he was going to take this passion and try to change the educational system.  Instead, he devoted his life to social change through educating individuals to become effective change agents (activist, labor union develper, and such).  The more indepth the book went into union organizations and activism, the less enjoyable it was to me.  I felt at one point while reading the book that it was too "self-serving", the name dropping was excessive (sorry I cringe when I wrote this because it's not a positive thing to say) and I only finished it because it was a required text to read. 

Then, I reached chapter 21: The Future, and it connected with me again.  Here are my take away final quotes from this book: 

- "It's important to understand the process you use to get to a place determines the ends, so if you want to build a democratic society, you have to act democratically in every way." 

-"Believing in people's capacity to govern themselves." 

-"Goals are unattainable in the sense that they always grow." 

-"Your vision will grow.  . . Other people will pick it up and go beyond." 

As simplistic as these four statements are, they made dramatic impact on my thoughts as an educator.  Does the educational environment that I have worked so hard to design in the classroom allow students to accomplish these things?  I think I have a great amount of growth that needs to occur to allow me to say "yes" to all four of these things. They have been incorporated into my vision of a classroom design that will faciliate the opportunity for optional learning and the evolution into life-long learners for students. 

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