Hang in There, David

Unfortunately this refers to my friend and collaborator David Welsh:

Arlington County police are investigating a serious pedestrian accident on Carlin Springs Road, in front of Kenmore Middle School.

Around 7:00 p.m. (Wednesday), a man in his 30s was struck by a car on Carlin Springs Road just south of Route 50, according to Arlington County Police Department spokesman Dustin Sternbeck. The man suffered “severe head trauma” and was transported in critical condition to Inova Fairfax Hospital.

The last I heard, his situation is still grave, but hasn't deteriorated. If a positive attitude and force of will can pull you through something like this, he will be fine.

David is the driving force behind CanDo, which is the actually successful part of SchoolTool, the project I manage. David is a born salesman, unabashed fundraiser and great trainer, and our skillsets have meshed well.

One interesting thing I learned a few years ago over dinner with David and our co-conspirator Jeff Elkner was that they both came to teaching after intense involvement with the homeless. David in particular went from doing video production to teaching homeless people to document their lives, to (in order to support a family) teaching video production in the Arlington Career Center.

But he still brought that experience of try to empower people to tell their own stories, and he became passionate about competency tracking (of all things) when he saw that he could use it to essentially ensure that he was providing enough structure to his students inquiry. There aren't too many people who can keep those two things balanced in their minds, but it is often necessary to make progressive pedagogy work.

So... get well, David. We're not done with you yet.