Dr. Marca Wolfensberger

Professor Transdisciplinary Education & Cooperation | AvansUAS | Sitevisitor NCHC | #Transdisciplinary #Cooperation #Talentdevelopment in #Highered & beyond

[Travis Akers 🇺🇸 @travisakers]

A message from a Kindergarten teacher:

After forty years in the classroom, my career ended with one small sentence from a six-year-old:

“My dad says people like you don’t matter anymore.”

No sneer. No malice. Just quiet honesty — the kind that cuts deeper because it’s innocent. He blinked, then added, “You don’t even have a TikTok.”

My name is Mrs. Clara Holt, and for four decades, I taught kindergarten in a small Denver suburb. Today, I stacked the last box on my desk and locked the door behind me.

When I started teaching in the early 1980s, it felt like a promise — a shared belief that what we did mattered. We weren’t rich, but we were valued. Parents brought warm cookies to parent nights. Kids gave you handmade cards with hearts that didn’t quite line up. Watching a child sound out their first sentence felt like magic.

But that world slowly slipped away. The job I once knew has been replaced by exhaustion, red tape, and a kind of loneliness I can’t quite describe.

My evenings used to be filled with construction paper, glitter, and glue sticks. Now they’re spent filling out digital reports to protect myself from angry emails or lawsuits. I’ve been yelled at by parents in front of twenty-five children — one filming me with his phone while I tried to calm another child mid-meltdown.

And the kids… they’ve changed too. Not by choice.

They arrive tired, anxious, overstimulated. Their tiny fingers know how to swipe a screen before they can hold a crayon. Some can’t make eye contact or wait in line. We’re expected to fix all of it — to patch the gaps, heal the trauma, teach the curriculum, and document every move — in six hours a day, with resources that barely fill a drawer.

The little reading corner I once built, full of soft beanbags and paper stars, was replaced by data charts and “learning metrics.” A young principal once told me, “Clara, maybe you’re too nurturing. The district wants measurable results.”

As if kindness were a weakness.

Still, I stayed. Because of the small, holy moments that no spreadsheet could measure —
a whisper of, “You remind me of my grandma.”
a shaky note that read, “I feel safe here.”
a quiet boy finally meeting my eyes and saying, “I read the whole page.”

Those tiny sparks were my reason to keep showing up.

But this last year broke something in me.

The aggression grew sharper. The laughter in the staff room turned to silence. The light went out of so many eyes. I watched brilliant teachers — my friends — vanish under the weight of burnout, their joy replaced by survival.

I felt myself fading too, like chalk on a board that’s been wiped one too many times.

So today, I began my goodbye. I pulled faded art off the walls and tucked thirty years of handmade cards into a single box. In the back of a drawer, I found a letter from a student from 1998:

“Thank you for loving me when I was hard to love.”

I sat on the floor and cried.

No party. No applause. Just a handshake from a young principal who called me “Ma’am” while checking his notifications.

I left my rocking chair behind, and my sticker box too. What I carried with me were the memories — the faces of hundreds of children who once trusted me enough to reach out their hands and learn. That can’t be uploaded. It can’t be measured. It can’t be replaced.

I miss when teachers were partners, not targets. When parents and educators worked side by side, not in opposition. When schools cared more about wonder than numbers.

So if you know a teacher — any teacher — thank them. Not with a mug or a gift card, but with your words. With your respect. With your understanding that behind every test score is a heart that cared enough to try.

Because in a world that often overlooks them, teachers are the ones who never forget our children.

[Didi Griffioen @DidiGriffioen]

@Jac_o_mine spreekt @MWolfensberger toe na haar lectorale rede. @AvansHogeschool

[Didi Griffioen @DidiGriffioen]

@MWolfensberger trapt haar lectorale rede af @AvansHogeschool

[Mohamad Safa @mhdksafa]

When Tina Turner left her first husband - who was also her boss, captor, and brutal tormentor - she snuck out of their Dallas hotel room with a single thought in her mind: "The way out is through the door."
From there she fled across the midnight freeway, semi-trucks careening past her, with 36 cents and a Mobil gas card in her pocket. As soon as she decided to walk out that door, she owned nothing else.
When she filed for divorce, she made an unusual request. She didn't want anything: not the song rights, not the cars, not the houses, not the money. All she wanted was the stage name he gave her - Tina - and her married name - Turner. This was the name by which the world had come to know her, and keeping it was her only chance to salvage her career.
Things could have gone a lot of ways from there. She could have labored in obscurity for decades, maybe making records on small labels to be prized by vinyl connoisseurs in Portland. She could have stayed in Vegas, where she first went to get her chops back up, and worked as a nostalgia act. And, of course, given what she had been through, she might have ... not made it.
What happened instead is that Tina Turner became the biggest global rock star of the 80s. I'm old enough to barely remember this, but if you aren't, it was like this: The Rolling Stones would headline a stadium one day, and the next day it would be Tina Turner. A middle-aged Black woman - she became a rock star at 42! - sitting atop the 1980s like it was her throne.
She managed this because of whatever rare stuff she was made of (this is a woman whose label gave her two weeks to record her solo debut, Private Dancer, which went five times platinum); because she decided to speak publicly about her abusive marriage and forge her own identity, and in doing so give hope and courage to countless women; and also because - in a perhaps unlikely twist for a girl from Nutbush, Tennessee - she had her practice of Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhism, to which she credited her survival. She remained devout until the end.
Tina's second marriage - to her, her only marriage - was to Edwin Bach, a Swiss music executive 16 years her junior. Of him, she said, "Erwin, who is a force of nature in his own right, has never been the least bit intimidated by my career, my talents, or my fame."
In 2016, after a barrage of health problems, Tina's kidneys began to fail. A Swiss citizen by then, she had started preparing for assisted suicide when her husband stepped in. According to Tina, he said, "He didn't want another woman, or another life."
He gave her one of his kidneys, buying her the remainder of her time on this earth and perhaps closing a cycle which took her from a man who inflicted injury upon her to a man willing to inflict injury upon himself to save her from harm.
Born into a share-cropping family as Anna Mae Bullock in 1939, she died Tina Turner in a palatial Swiss estate: the queen of rock 'n roll; a storm of a performer with a wildcat-fierce voice; a dancer of visceral, spine-tingling potency and ability; a beauty for the ages; a survivor of terrible abuse and an advocate for others in similar situations; an author and actress; a devout Buddhist; a wife and mother; a human being of rare talent and perseverance who, through her transcendent brilliance, became a legend.

Will Stenberg

[Dr. Marca Wolfensberger @MWolfensberger]

@MarteVroom Goede reis marte!

[Bijan @Bijan63]

Het Iraanse criminele regime is doodsbang voor de moedige vrouwen in #Iran: overal staan slimme Chinese gezichtsherkenningscamera's om vrouwen zonder hijab te spotten en te arresteren. #WomanLifeFreedom #MahsaAmini #IranRevolution

[Bijan @Bijan63]

#Iran:
Vrouwen zullen worden vervolgd voor het niet dragen vd hijab, zei Mohsen Ejehei, het hoofd vd rechterlijke macht gisteren.

Ik roep de @UN_HRC op om een spoedzitting te houden om Iraanse vrouwen te verdedigen.

RT als jij het er ook mee eens bent 🙏
https://t.co/a0g17BuTKa

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

27 March 1937 | An Italian Jewish girl, Sara Gesess, was born in Padua.

She was deported to #Auschwitz in August 1944, she was murdered in the gas chamber.

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

25 March 1932 | A French Jewish girl, Ida Grynszpan, was born in Paris.

She arrived at #Auschwitz on 20 August 1942 in a transport of 997 Jews deported from Drancy. She was among the 897 people murdered in a gas chamber after selection.

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

23 March 1928 | A Jewish boy, Isaac Futerman, was born in Tel Aviv (then the British Mandate of Palestine). He lived in Paris.

He arrived at #Auschwitz on 19 August 1942 in a transport of 997 Jews from Drancy. He was among 897 people murdered after selection in a gas chamber.

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

24 March 1936 | A French Jew, Jacques Gabai, was born in Quimper.

He arrived at #Auschwitz on 6 February 1944 in a transport of 1214 Jews deported from Drancy. He was among 999 people murdered in gas chambers after selection.

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

19 March 1922 | A German Jewish woman, Sara Jacobson, was born in Hamburg. She lived in Amsterdam.

In August 1942 she was deported to #Auschwitz together with her father Naphtali and three siblings: Bernhard, Dina and Ernst. None of them survived.

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

18 March 1935 | A Dutch Jewish girl, Mirjam Hoogstraal (left), was born in Apeldoorn.

In February 1944 she was transferred from Westerbork to #Theresienstadt and deported to #Auschwitz on 4 September 1944. She was murdered in the gas chamber with her sister Johanna Wilhelmina.

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

19 March 1939 | A French Jewish girl, Arlette Skalka, was born in Paris.

She arrived at #Auschwitz on 23 August 1942 in a transport of 1,000 Jews deported from Drancy. She was among 892 people murdered after selection in a gas chamber.

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

11 March 1934 | A French Jew, Marcel Milsztejn, was born in Paris.

He arrived at #Auschwitz on 31 August 1942 in a transport of 1,000 Jews deported from Drancy. He was among the 676 people murdered after selection in a gas chamber.

[Nazanin Nour @NazaninNour]

Despite brutal repression, including the killing of around 600 protesters (72 of them children), the people of Iran have been fighting for 6 months.

The goal is the end of theocratic rule/the regime

Iranians in Iran, and those in the diaspora, continue the fight for freedom.

[Nazanin Nour @NazaninNour]

On 9/16/22, 22 yr old Kurdish Iranian woman Jina Mahsa Amini died after being brutally beaten by the Islamic Regime’s Morality Police for improper hejab.

Her murder sparked the current uprising in Iran, with many recognizing it as the world’s first WOMEN LED REVOLUTION.

[Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en]

Instead of a thousand words.

Street in front of the Russian embassy, London, UK.

Done by: @ByDonkeys

Thank you!

[NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @NOELreports]

Dutch people are so cool. The National Anthem of Ukraine is playing in front of the Russian Embassy in The Hague from a traditional barrel organ.

🇳🇱🤝🇺🇦

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

22 February 1935 | A Dutch Jewish girl, Cili Been, was born in Rotterdam.

She was deported to #Auschwitz in August 1942 and murdered in the gas chamber.