Advice to Myself About Teaching

Burnout comes from too much complaining, when you put in too much of yourself and the resulting
cascade comes because you want too much to create calm but try too hard. The result is
drama from sweating the small stuff too much and therein comes discouragement. But
evidence shows that most students still want to become more than they are.
Few are fully formed, but most keep coming back, maybe because you are
granted the right every day to make a difference. Right now you are about
halfway to retirement and still
inspired! But the
January of your career is long past, so
know and accept that from this point on the best
language to speak is the one students understand. Yes, it’s
more work to always be changing and growing, but
never quit, because as long as you show
open
passion for what you do, you get to make a difference every day. And that’s
quite a thing. If that’s not a
reason to wake up excited, what is?

Some have a stigma against teachers today. But I will
tell you that
under all the grading, meetings, statistics,
vertical and horizontal retention charts,
weekends of grading and so many emails creating
xenophobic desires for time to yourself,
you still have the desire and fire to change lives.  And after
zillions of years of inspiration pass from generation to generation, the truth will be that even if you don’t hear it often enough, someone always remembers the difference that you make.


** An abecedarius is a form of writing in which each line or line grouping starts with a letter of the alphabet, in order from A to Z, and mine is called “Advice to Myself About Teaching.” If done correctly, the reader should not even notice the rigidity of the form.