Teaching Passion

  As we near the end of the school year we can fall into a glut of negativity as certain things are really annoying to us on school day #179 that may not have been on day #1. We've tried a few good, and not so good, district initiatives. We need to create finals and study guides, and finish up grading on top of it. We've tried multiple interventions with a student, and his/her negative behaviors persist. Some mystery co-worker keeps taking the last cup of coffee from the pot and not brewing more! (editorial on coffee pot emptiers here) 

  While I hesitate to call it summer "vacation" because many of us stay just as busy with coaching responsibilities, summer school, second jobs, kids, classes, and conferences, the idea of summer is what keeps us going. Many of us even have countdowns on the board or we post "days until summer" on our twitter feeds. 

  Did you go into teaching so that you could have summers off? Probably not. So why perpetuate the myth a lot of the public holds?

  As we progress to the 2015/2016 school year, I urge you to shift focus to the why as an educator. Why DID you go into teaching? Why do you get excited when you are teaching certain things?

Build some new parameters that you are comfortable with and trust the students to explore their why as well. Project Based Learning (PBL) really focuses on this, but I am by no means asking you to jump right into having a PBL classroom next fall. Instead, I am asking that you pursue letting students apply some of their passions to your curriculum.

  Maybe you can recreate the excitement you had/have for becoming a teacher for a student in helping him/her to find something they are passionate about as well. If we are creating a classroom where doing the safe thing is always the right thing, we are encouraging our students to always go the safe route. If our classroom encourages interweaving things students are passionate and excited about, we will be encouraging our students to take risks and to continue to pursue their passions into adulthood. 

*"Have you ever met an adult who doesn’t like their job? I’ve met many. And it’s not necessarily their fault, our system produces many adults who failed to have a chance to find their passion through schooling and instead found that the best way to get by was to keep getting by…" (Re-Inventing School With Choice by AJ Juliani)*