~as they grow in heart and grow in spirit~

My good husband keeps telling me that I need to get a hobby so that when I finally do stop teaching some time in the future, I will have something to keep me busy and occupied.  Each time he asks me what it shall be, I always have the same answer for him.

"I have no idea."

My hobby for the past nearly 40 some odd years has been children, in particular it has been the growing of children.  I have been blessed to keep them for 9 months of a year and do my best to feed and nurture them with as much knowledge, wisdom, and love as I could possible give them before sending them on to the next grade.  I have been able to measure how much they grew from the beginning to the end of the school year by whatever type of standardized tests they were given.  I was happy for them and quite proud of the academic growth they displayed, no matter the degree of it.  Every child is different academically and I see that for what it is truly worth.  Yet growing "book smarter" is not the least of the signs of growth that I look for.  In my very humble opinion, there is something worth so very much more than that.

I want them to grow in heart and spirit.  
I desire to teach them as many life lessons as I can in such a very short span of time.

I don't even know when I started to realize that I was a teacher of life lessons.  I think it kind of snuck up on me, somewhere back in about year #5.  It probably happened one day when I was telling a story about something that had happened to me or perhaps to someone I knew.  In my memory, I think perhaps that I might have told a different remembrance day after day until finally one time when I was teaching back in Hutchinson, some kid one day said this.

"Teacher, are you ever going to stop telling us stories?"

At first, I was taken aback for just a moment.  Geesch, maybe I was telling them too much stuff. Maybe I should just stick to the book, you know?  Nowhere on the lesson plans was there the notation to pause a moment and tell them about the time when I was little that we basically had only two pairs of shoes to wear, and one of them could be referred to as "bare feet".

In my shame and horror that maybe I was indeed veering off track, I decided to ask that young man if he thought I should not talk so much about things like that.  I didn't know what he would say and as his response came back to me, I could see the broad smile on his little first grade face.

"Well, I hope you don't 'cause I like them."

And so it went on.

If I could give advice to a new teacher starting up in this business of education, I think the very best wisdom that I could impart would be this.  Don't stick to the book and don't ever fear talking about things that are not even in the lesson plans for the day.  Sometimes the best lessons that a teacher can teach are those that pop up daily right in front of your very eyes.  No need to worry that you won't recognize them because when they arise, you will know it in an instant.  You will feel it right inside of your very heart and I know you have one.

You are a teacher.

Lessons of kindness, patience, integrity, service, goodwill, tolerance, diversity, understanding, empathy, sympathy, and a host of a thousand others are waiting to be taught.  Although they are not listed among the standards of the state of Oklahoma, or any other state for that matter, one thing is for certain.

They most certainly should be.
Life~teach about it.  It makes for a really great lesson.

These pictures, taken back in 2006, were from a 5-year period of time that I was a CNA back in Hutchinson, Kansas.  I took care of the elders who lived in the Wheaton Greenhouse every weekend and during the breaks from school.  Talk about learning some great life lessons, only this time it was they who taught me.  Neva Jane and Marion were 2 of the 10 folks who lived there.  The saddest life lesson to learn, that of dying, was taught to me by all ten of them.  The greatest benefit from learning that particular lesson was realizing that sooner or later, it shall be taught to us all.