I've been in a contemplative place this holiday break. One thing that's come up for me is how quickly the year is going by. I remember several times lately when, at the end of the school day, I've experienced this strange feeling of slight disappointment that the day is over! The disappointment is there because I realize I've let the day go by without fully appreciating every moment I spend working with my students.
Every moment is a tremendous opportunity. To fully realize the opportunities that I'm faced with every day, I've got to be fully present. What gets in the way? I love teaching and I love my students. I want to say that my mind is occupied by extraneous things, but this is not exactly the case. My mind doesn't wander while I'm teaching. Surely I'm influenced by Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach, which I'm reading now, but I think that being fully present is a matter of the mind and the heart.
I'm practicing putting more heart into everything I do this week--whether it's the dishes or making a soup, or talking to a friend. I'm hoping this practice will help me cherish every moment in the classroom with my mind and my heart. I can't think of a better New Year's Resolution for my 2011 teaching life.
[image credit: sunhealer.wordpress.com]
Now that this post has been reposted by Smartbrief (thanks!) I feel like I need to go into a little more detail. This post makes it sound way too simple, as if my heart isn't always in teaching, and one New Year's resolution can fix that! The real issue is that I become spread too thin, multi-tasking to the point that I'm not privileging those hours I spend with students above all else. Just about everything else that commands my attention throughout the day serves my teaching, whether it's meeting with other teachers to plan an advisory unit, collecting or analyzing data, grading papers, returning emails from parents, etc. These tasks are very important, and my teaching or my school could not function without them happening on a regular basis. Nonetheless, being there with the students must be the focal point of my energies. On a visceral level, I need to prioritize my attention.
Secondly, to be fully present, I need to double check that I believe in everything I do in the classroom. I need to return to the notion of curriculum as conversation. I want to hear more from my students--all my students. I don't want skills and data to replace real relationships, conversations, and identity development, at an age when they are most needed.
I begin every class with a meeting in the meeting area of my classroom. I don't want meetings to just be lessons. I want to allow some time for the class to really meet and explore questions and ideas that come up in the work and in our classroom community. There should be time for that--even in 45 minute periods.
Teaching is always a tricky balancing act. I believe my heart can be more of an influence in achieving the right balance in my classroom.
Posted by: Ariel Sacks | December 29, 2010 at 10:53 PM