Going through some old teaching notes, I found this bit just a few days after Trump got himself impeached for a second time:

The sophomores gathered in small independent groups to tackle production of a Shakespeare play.

“Talk amongst yourselves. Decide if you want to have a leader.” They nodded. I left.

A few minutes later, a student knocked on the door. “Why would we want a leader?”

Such a good question.

We risk turning ourselves into numb “receptacles,” as Paulo Freire put it, when we allow another to take responsibility for our lives. What we want for our world gets lost as we bury ourselves in the “lack of creativity, transformation and knowledge” that is “this (at best) misguided system.”

Sometimes we do need leaders – but we cannot negate our responsibility to be the most thinking, responsive, creative citizens we can be. Our fragile notion of a nation needs our best. Only when we are at our strongest can we best choose the leaders we need.

We do not serve leaders and leadership is not a right. It is a gift bestowed. Empowered with our sacred trust, chosen leaders need to remember they are serving, protecting, and nurturing not only the well-being of our nation but also the autonomy of its citizens.