Human Voices Wake Us

You must have passion to inspire passion – passion about your subject and passion about the students whom you teach.  That is just the beginning of inspiring students.  What you will soon come to find out, though, is that the passion for your students will begin to trump anything else.  You will find yourself doing whatever you can to help them be successful, whether it’s designing an engaging lesson, creating non-traditional tests, or just giving them emotional support in all their endeavors.  If you truly want to inspire your students to learn, you must first allow them to inspire you.  You must be inspired by their tenacity to come to school when they have no parental support.  You must be inspired by their imagination and humor.  You must be inspired by the possible future that lies within each student.  Once you are inspired, you will stop at nothing to return the favor.  The relationship you build and the care you show will cause them to love you and the learning you give them.  Teaching is a profession that blesses you with the opportunity to become a part of others’ lives.  This is a great and noble task, and one that will seem less and less like a job and more and more like a privilege. If you want to motivate and inspire students, let them motivate and inspire you.  See them as human beings with whom you have been given the chance to make a difference in their lives.  See them as who they will be one day.  Then show them your vision.  Your greatest teaching tool in inspiring students is opening the door and letting them see the possibilities of what can be. 

There are some days when I want to be in my office and some days when I can’t wait to get out.  What makes the difference? Honestly, I have no idea.

Take today for example.  I had absolutely no desire to go do walkthroughs.  Granted, I had to organize 504 folders, deal with cheaters, read the new Scholastic books I bought for my son that just came in, talk to teachers about PDAS, eat, etc.  But the few minutes I did have were wasted cleaning out my email and well, nothing else, really. 

I worry that I might fall into the trap of many administrators of holing up in my office and only coming out for assigned duties.  Maybe these kind of days are like the ones I had as a teacher when I just wanted the students to sit quietly and work on assignment.  I guess that’s okay as long as it doesn’t become the usual.

So, if I’m not in the mood to get out of my office, how do I get myself in the mood?  Where do I find the motivation? 

Maybe I’ll develop an award system for myself, such as: 30 minutes of walkthroughs = 1 game of solitaire, or 1 hour of walkthroughs = ???? ( I’m really not sure what would be reward enough for spending 1 hour in walkthroughs (other than, of course, the knowledge that I’m doing the right thing for instruction.))  Yeah…..

In the past 6 weeks, I’ve been spit on approximately 4 times – all from boys.  Why is it that spitting is a reaction to things not going right?  Is it just a male thing?  I have never thought about spitting as a way to express my displeasure.  I do believe that to spit on someone is to show extreme disrespect.  Do boys spit on people because they know that or because they just like to spit?  Is this learned behavior? 

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