Martin Luther King Day reminds a school principal of the right
kind of dissatisfaction: To recognize what's wrong and to feel
that something better is possible – and you can help fix it. I
celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. today. Perhaps it’s because my
father spent part of his newspaper career traveling through
Alabama to Selma, Birmingham and Montgomery covering the famous
civil rights demonstrations led by Dr. King. Perhaps because
King would be the same age as my father. But I think it’s mostly
because King taught me how to be positively dissatisfied,
something I hope I’ve conveyed to my children and students. His
was a simple message: how to object to injustice. “This isn’t
right; something better is possible.” But there’s a crucial
coda: “I can help to fix it.” Many have identified injustice;
few have given the tools for change to the powerless. King, the
legendary American, the Nobel laureate, the preacher, the
courageous man, connects me to the essence of my work in
education. Working in schools, I kno