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Copyright © Louis Schmier and Atwood Publishing.
Date: Wed 5/21/2003 6:52 AM
Random Thought: A Teacher's Biggest Challenge
Like a mad dog and Englishman I was out in the sun, heat, and
humidity working in my front garden two days ago trying to beat the
distant darkening sky and threatening thunder. As I was pruning my roses,
a car suddenly swerved with a slight screech towards the curb that
caught my attention and parked across the street.
As I turned. The car door opened. Out stepped Mary. She came
over to me and said, "You live here, Dr Schmier?"
"No," I answered. "I'm the gardener."
"Let me give you a 'thanks' hug. I missed you at graduation."
I stood up straight and protested, "I'm sweaty and dirty."
"Who cares."
As she hugged me, I asked, "What's this for?"
"For being there all these years when I need someone even though
you weren't my adviser. For being at my graduation. I saw you. It meant
a lot when you gave me a thumbs up as I got my diploma. I'm glad I saw
you. We've got to talk." She turned to look at the darkened clouds
turning black. "Got time before it pours?"
We sat down on the grass cross-legged talking about her future.
She was down. She told me how a lot of people were, in her words, "trying
to steal my dream" with "why are you going into teaching" warnings about
lousy pay, school politics, complaining parents, disrespectful students,
overcrowded classes, loads of paperwork, overwork, and "just being treated
without respect in general as an amateur who is doing something anyone can
do."
For about ten or fifteen minutes, she said how those people got
her depressed and didn't seem all that supportive of her choice of career.
"I'm willing to work hard at teaching. I love children, but I don't
know.... They make it sound so, so horrible. You always came into class
so upbeat, so full of sunshine with your upbeat music and your 'Words of
the Day." You didn't let anything really bother you for long. You
somehow get over things. You never stopped believing in each of us. You
were always there to listen even when we weren't in your class anymore.
We never knew what was going to happen in class because you always came in
with something new that you tried on us. I've seen it over and over
again. I've heard about it from others since I was in our class over and
over again. My friends and family have made think twice. I'm scared I
won't be able to stick with it and do what I want to do. I don't want to
become a cynical, distant, or burnt out zombie like a lot of teachers I've
seen. If that's what my future is like, I'll go into something else...."
As she got up, she asked, "I've got to go to my job. I want you
to tell me what you think is going to be my biggest challenge and how I
should deal with it. If I really know what to expect, I can handle it."
"I'll do that if you do something for me."
"Always the teacher. What's that."
"Write down just what it is you want to do. Only two words."
"Two words?!?!?!?"
"Two words. Something I'm developing."
"Thanks for using me as a guinea pig again. You did that once
with the Rodin Project.," she lovingly smirked. "But, I'll do it. I
know you have a purpose. You always do."
And off she went with a "gotta run. You made me late. See ya
around. Come into ....... and I'll serve you."
"Those two words?"
"....And you'll get your two words."
"Your two words!"
"My two words!"
She drove off and left with an equally tough challenge. This is
what I wrote her this morning after my walk. I used more than two words:
"Mary, what will be your biggest challenge? On the first day of
the first year in your career that you enter the classroom will be the
same challenge as the first day of the thirty-ninth year that I enter the
classroom. And, it will be the same each and every day of your career no
less than it has been for mine in the past decade that I've seen myself as
a teacher. It will be understanding that working at teaching is not
enough. You have to constantly work on yourself. The biggest challenge
you will face in your careers will be, always will be, each day, staying
excited every day about teaching and especially about each student. You
will have to learn how to sing in the rain as well as in the sunshine.
If you don't stay excited about teaching, you're right. You'll stop or be
stopped working at teaching. It will become just plain ole monotonous
work. The tiring nitty-gritty detail, paperwork, meetings, conferences,
obstacles, objections, preparation, politics, and long hours that
necessarily go along with the work of teaching will lose any meaning.
They will wear you down and wear you out. All that 'miserable stuff'
won't be miserable if you see a purpose for it and have reason to be
excited about it. If you don't, you'll stop living and will join the
ranks of the merely existing, robotic, mechanical, bored, emotionless,
dead-panned walking-dead. Your biggest challenge, then, is that you will
have to to keep your powder dry. You can't light your fire or keep it
burning if you're all wet. You will have to learn to be a constant
student of learning how to stop people and things from demotivating,
uncommitting, uninvolving, and especially 'unwhying' you."
Can you be excited all the time? I think you can, but allow
yourself a slip or two here and there. After all, you're not perfect.
You are human. But, just a here and there. No more. I know it won't be
easy, which is why it will be your greatest challenge. Teaching, like
life, doesn't just happen. There are no magic wands to wave or ruby
slippers to click together. Your habits play a major role in how the
future of your teaching will unfold. They will decide if coach will or
won't turn into a pumpkin and the prancing horses into rats. So, you will
have to program yourself to get into getting the habit of always doing
four things each day.
First,, chase after and get a worthy and meaningful two-word
purpose. You say you love children. So? Loving children is your
attitude. For what purpose are you going to use your attitude and
subsequent actions. I am talking about your precise, concise, and
uncliched 'know-why.' However important is your 'know-how' and 'know
what,' they are not much without your directing and kindling 'know why."
Each day, look in the mirror, gaze at your navel, stare at the stars, peer
into your soul, and go deep. Go on a daily hunt for your purpose, that
'why' that gets your juices flowing, your heart pumping, your minding
focusing, your lungs heaving, your legs dancing, your belly burning, your
spirit soaring, your face smiling, and your eyes gleaming.
Second, each day keep that 'know why' waving as a reminder square
in front of your eyes. Tattoo it on your arm, paste it on your office
door, tape it to your bathroom mirror, decopage it on the seat of your
commode, hang it on your refrigerator door. It will keep you both going
on and on-growing. Never put it on the shelf. Without it you'll lose
your focus, determination, persistence, enjoyment, meaning. You'll start
to wallow in a shallow and empty resigned "This is all there is to it.
There ain't any more." You'll wind up leading a small life, arguing over
small stuff, crying over small pinpricks, grimacing over small
disappointments, and leaving control over you and your future to someone
else. And, your 'know-how' will be harder and harder to use until it
becomes a drudgery of 'no-hows.'
Third, believe constantly with all your heart that what you're
doing is critically and incredibly important, that you are reaching out
and touching others, enriching others, helping others, and leaving behind
a world altered for the better.
And fourth, know that there's no time to waste, have a sense of
desperate urgency that today is urgent.
Work hard on, focus on, expend a lot of energy on those four
habits each day of getting, keeping, believing, and knowing until they
become almost automatic, and each day you'll find the adjectives:
challenging, motivating, inspiring, stimulating, imagining, innovating,
and creating.
Keep in touch. You know where I am. And always....
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