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A Reflection – 1
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15 thoughts on “A Reflection – 1”
We haven’t lived the same life nor followed the same physical career path, but I intimately know all of the feelings of which you speak (started teaching in 1976, so you can imagine the extent of the personal toll this has taken).
That drive for success, approval and always sensing the wolf at the door of my classroom made it impossible to relax and just be. I was in constant search of a new trick, the perfect activities and products that would prove my worth to administrators and parents (and to myself). It’s smoke and mirrors.
Lots of therapy, personal reflection, mindfulness training, really working the basics of tprs, and finding “my CI people” have helped me to better live “less is more”, to stop chasing my tail so much, to relax in my classroom, and to really enjoy teaching. I’ve always enjoyed my relationship with my students, but this is different.
It is a windy path for me. When fear dominates your work life for such a long time, it is as you describe: “This shit goes very deep and goes away very very slowly.” As you know, I am also very passionate about this work. It’s not just about CI instruction; it’s about seeing the essence of this kind of instruction–almost taking it down to the bones, and relaxing as you so well describe. The magic bullet, of course, is inside me.
“always sensing the wolf at the door of my classroom made it impossible to relax and just be”. The feeling is visceral and palpable.
OH. MY. GOD. THE MUSIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am left speechless, incapable of expressing what happens when I listen to this man’s voice. Thank you for this gift. I am going to share this for sure…it can only increase the awareness that we are all connected.
I echo both you and Jody and everyone else in this group who has suffered because we were so fear-driven. One of my teachers recently said “there is only love and fear.” Maybe it is a famous quote that ppl know already but it really hit me this weekend.
It’s so striking that so many of the details you describe–especially the overcommitment–mirror my own experience. It feels like I have always been casting about for something to cling to to make me feel worthy and successful. And Jody mentions all the therapy and the urgency to prove one’s worth. Damn! That is pretty much me also. It has taken a lot of years to realize that, as Jody says, “The magic bullet, of course, is inside me.”
Here’s to a new start every moment, an opportunity to remember the light within each of us. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart!!!
I have similar feelings all of the time, and it’s scary that we were taught these feelings in school. I have to X and I have to do it the BEST because if I don’t, then it’s not good enough. It’s been difficult to make myself a priority at times because I felt like I could always do better. And it’s scary that schools in general are teaching these same behaviors to students today.
Kids are so scared to make mistakes that they aren’t even willing to try any more. “Failing” (or not getting everything perfect the first time) has been taught as such a negative thing, that students would rather not try at all than fail at something. That is another reason why what we do is so powerful: we give kids feelings of success. We understand that students process and will be ready for output at different times and rates.
All of what we do as teachers is so demanding, and we have so many charges. It gets overwhelming for me because I’m someone who wants to create change. I see so many things that could be better for our students that sometimes I get lost because what I am doing “isn’t good enough” for them. But that’s when I have to take out the thank you notes from students or sit back and laugh with a class about some situation in a story because we have to enjoy life too!
…it’s scary that schools in general are teaching these same behaviors….
I think it was Jim who mentioned something a few weeks ago here about how he is suspicious of schools. When, because children went to school, having no other choices in how they grow up, and then when they grow up nervous and competitive like me, then we justifiably need to question what schools are doing.
All of us with a spine need to step WAY back and look at the whole thing. We are in a position to do that, since our interest in CI sets us up as natural iconoclasts in the first place. Krashen is looked upon as a renegade for very good reasons. Diana Noonan walks a fine line every day in leading our district forward to a much better future.
Pity those who never question their way of teaching, or their employers. Pity those in education who never suggest alternatives, who never think about what is really best for the kids. They are on a death march.
I think that maybe part of the issue here is all of the regurgitation of facts on standardized, multiple choice exams. I strongly feel that there is a place for those, and that multiple choice should be used; but our students lives can be so scripted in school that creativity and the process of thinking is really foreign to them. They are minimized to just worrying about being “right” and not “wrong” instead of becoming self-assured learners. That is why I admire Robert’s work with the new standards so much, it really encourages a change in that type of thinking. There wasn’t any of that caliber of thinking when I was in school.
Also, thank goodness for CI and all of our willingness to “box outside the think”. I agree that those of us who use CI (and Diana too!) have the passion and vision to really question what is and what could be. The fact that there is a whole community of us really brightens the future for our students, even if it is too late for ourselves as students.
“What caused me to do that for over thirty years? I think it was the need to be approved of that drove everything I did. The formula seemed to be that if I worked hard enough and got good enough at stuff, or if my students got good enough, things would be all right and I would be successful in life. I would be loved.”
“The thing that hurts the most is that I was never able to enjoy my own life during this time. It was all future oriented. How can we give ourselves permission to just be happy? How can we do that?”
You clearly express my own experience in life although, after having completed college and training at a German Gymnasium, I had the luck to do something completely different for about six years: I managed a whole-food shop in Lübeck. I restarted teaching in 1990 at Kaltenkirchen Waldorf School. Although there is no rigid curriculum in Waldorf schools and no use of books I have worked hard to train myself and to be good enough in the eyes of my students and their parents for over 20 years. Finding TPR, TPRS and finally this blog has indeed simplified my every day life and changed my view on so many things.
Currently I am reading the book “The Power Of Now” by Eckart Toller and it has opened my eyes to the importance of not living in the past nor in the future, but now, in the present.
It is our mind that keeps us thinking of the past and the future almost all the time, maintains our fears and prevents us from staying in the moment and connecting to our real self that we can only find when we calm down and live in the present. It is only then we really live, says Toller. Isn’t this exactly what we try to do when teaching with CI, when simply talking to our kids?
Talking of simplicity – have you ever seen a modern film without any underlying music, just relying on the visual element, the power of dialogue, and silence? Go and see “Of Gods and Men”. It’s a deeply moving story about French monks in modern Algeria, living peacefully in the Atlas mountains, who are threatened by the increasing violence between fundamentalists and the army. Here are two links, an excellent review from The Guardian, and the official trailer:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/dec/02/of-gods-and-men-review
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWEIxzlKCgA
Tomorrow will be our last day of school before Christmas break. I will really try to relax and think a lot.
Ben, thank you for writing this piece, from a younger person just getting started on this professional journey. I think I know why you post that Merton quote so much, and why it is so important to you to remember now. I am always looking for that medium, between Merton’s warning of the “frenzy of the activist” and Leopold’s celebration of “seeing things as a mountain” (meaning getting the big picture, because everything is connected).
Again, thanks, it meant a lot to read this.
Awesome to hear from you Martin. I will definitely check out the film and thank you for being over there in Germany lending your energy to our work here. Even if we don’t hear from you a lot, you are nevertheless an important part of this process that we are all going through together.
And Jim you have given me another excuse to post the Merton quote again so here it is:
“To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone with everything is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
Oh my gosh. That is exactly what has been happening to me lately. I’ve been carried away trying to accomplish way too much–and so I got sick. Really sick–sitting up to sleep and coughing up my guts.
Thank you so much for this reminder. Like Martin, I am taking time to reflect this holiday. I am going into the woods for a respite and teaching with my Elder and some other learners. But, I needed this thought before I go so that I will stay centered in the NOW of that time.
I am so grateful for all of you and the support we each lend the others. I think this has been one of the best learning centers I’ve ever participated in and one of the broadest landscapes of thinking.
Take time to renew your spirit during these brief weeks.
Thank you. This is the crux of the issue. I was thinking about the idea of ‘just relaxing and staying in the moment’ last night and today. It’s been a tough week of teaching and tomorrow will be no easier. I’ve taken some time to thank my students for the year so far and the fact that I look forward to seeing each one of them as they walk in the door. I feel a sense of calmness within me and my students. I am thinking more. I am relaxing more. I am so excited about what I see.
I am having more fun teaching this year than I have in 10 years. These kids and the school are no utopia. Rather, I have worked at giving up the need to control everything and ridden the fear of no minute-by-minute plan. Sunday nights have been tough, but what has happened is an ongoing conversation, what we may call call interpersonal communication, on Mondays that lead to a story, and a reading, and then a spontaneous round of applause for something someone has done. In a nutshell, a real community has formed in our class, while we are learning. I am amazed at what they are learning and can comprehend. How they demand to understand and are asking all sorts of questions about how the language fits together.
Thanks to everyone for having the courage to share vulnerabilities, ideas and discoveries here. I have needed that in order to get through this transition to complete CI this fall. This is a great PLC, as we call it around here.
Congratulations Ben and thank you!
Thank you so much, Ben, for writing this. I understand these feelings and this journey so well. I started teaching in 1979 and I still feel as though I need to “do the most” and “be the best”. I am working on changing it though. I think that I am afraid of stepping away from what I have been told to do or what is easy to measure. This group and approach will soothe my last years I am sure. I do find it hard to change enough at a time, but I am trying. I am 58 and, before I read this, I was thinking about why I say no to a bike ride (as I just did) because I have so much to correct or exams to rewrite. I reach 5 levels plus remedial reading and there is never a time when I feel caught-up. We have one more week and I do feel swamped again this weekend. I always feel as though my weekend is 60% school work. I feel sad for the time that I missed with my children. I was a good mother and I did a lot with my children, but too often with a stack of papers next to me. Some of my colleagues have asked me how I do it all, and then I realize that it is because I do not allow myself to do less. I can’t seem to ease up. As you indicate, this is not a good thing. Your words “permission to be happy” really hit me. I will be at a new school next year and there will be some challenges, but I hope to have a new start and give myself that time and permission to enjoy life. Thank you so much Ben- you are helping to save this drowning teacher ( among many others).
Thanks for sharing, Donna. I’m so grateful for my wife of 3 years now who has insisted I spend more time with her, and that means without the computer on my lap when next to her on the sofa.
I’m telling ya that I love how I can spend my time now after learning how to teach using CI to reflect and improve upon my teaching rather than grading papers!
…I can’t seem to ease up….
Donna if it’s any consolation I can’t either. I think that the way we were trained, to be the best and all that, goes much deeper than any of us who acknowledge and embrace this problem may realize. It’s just that way. It’s deep in our society like so many other wrong thinking about what is acceptable.
But that is all in great change now, as we can see by just reading the news. So I think that we are just little parts of a huge change and that even if we can’t relax and smell the roses it is in the trying that we find the victory. Thank you for your wonderful honesty.
Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qY5_zJ23Qk (fooled by societal norms to be the best, etc.)