I told you, didn’t I, that this reflection on this passage in Proverbs for teaching so grabbed me that it became a long inner journey. Like all my reflections, I lived in it. It was a deliberate vagabonding that was so deep and extensive that I had to cut it up into a bunch of parts. Here goes Part VII.
“Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life.”
When we walk into the classroom, I wonder how many of us silently and unconsciously say to ourselves “ecce homo, behold humanity.” When we walk into a classroom do we exude the values of unconditional–uncondtional–open-heartedness, goodness, gentleness, caring, optimism, and kindness? I wonder how many of us consciously are what Rolf Potts calls “students of daily life” of each student. I wonder how many of us find, as Potts said, adventure in normal life and normal life in adventure. I wonder if how many of us see each student someone’s son or daughter, brother or sister, father or mother. I wonder how many of us see each student as a vital piece of the future, too valuable to lose. I wonder how many of us realize teaching is a personal attitude; it is not what we do, but who we are. I wonder how many of us accept that teaching is service, and that service is to each student, each student unconditionally; that service to each student means to save each of them from abstraction by opening your eyes and heart, by being curious about each of them, by making each real; and, that openness comes from learning who is really is.
So, I wonder how many of us marvel at the marvelous and mysterious human complexity that is each student. I wonder how many of us unconditionally are prepared to welcome and embrace surprise, and ready to be spontaneous. I wonder, still paraphrasing Potts, how many of us have discovered that the simple act of walking to class is itself an exercise in possibility. I wonder how many of us recognize the naturalness of imperfection. I wonder how many of us refuse to be imprisoned by the false images, the false answers to questions, in two dimensional stereotype, generality, and label.
“Ecco Homo”: That exclamation should be as a wave washing over us, so washing our spirit and attitude that it creates a whole new classroom culture.
Louis