Tonight after school I came home to read one of my usual boring and pointless reading assignments. What I got was something totally different. Something I could relate to. And so I began to cry as I read about the heart of a teacher.
"As good teachers weave the fabric that joins them with students and subjects, the heart is the loom on which the threads are tied, the tension is held, the shuttle flies, and the fabric is stretched tight. Small wonder, then, that teaching tugs at the heart, opens the heart, even breaks the heart-- and the more one loves teaching, the more heartbreaking it can be. The courage to teach is the courage to keep one's heart open in those very moments when the heart is asked to hold more than it is able so that teacher and students and subject can be woven in the fabric of community that learning and living require. "
A lot of the article stated that being a good teacher doesn't mean you have learned about the newest math curriculum, or newest forms of discipline, but that you understand yourself and that you connect your inner-self to you co-workers and students. As I've been staying later in the evenings, I've noticed my own personality finally mixes with that of the rest of the third grade team, and thank god. I was starting to feel like an outsider, seeing as I'm 10 years younger than them all and am not married and have no kids, and can't talk about buying new cars. But I've been trying my best, and I hope that soon it will catch on with the students as well. As a teacher, you wear your heart on your sleeve.
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