ON TEACHING: "The View from the Mountaintop"

When I look at my computer screen background these days – a view of the earth from space – I often think about my classroom, and how important it is for my students and me to maintain an appropriate “view” of things as we progress through our daily work. Often, I’m afraid we have a view that’s far too close-up to be helpful. We’re like hikers in a beautiful national park who are obsessed with the tiny patches of poison ivy along the trail. By focusing our attention on a minuscule aspect of the scene in front of us, we are unable to appreciate the grand immensity of what lies all around. I’m sure this happens to my students with regularity. They see only the test they’re facing tomorrow, or the sentence in A Tale of Two Cities they’re trying to understand today. They’re often unable to turn away from the little things and get a view from the mountaintop. It happens to me, too. Almost daily, even hourly, I lose myself in the minute details of teaching and fail to notice the spectacular reality that is spread out in front of me in my classroom. While I’m worrying about how to fill every minute of a class period, I’m missing the astonishing actuality of 12 infinitely gifted lives sitting in front of me. What’s really strange about this is that neither my students nor I have to do any “climbing” in order to reach the mountaintop and the best views. We’re already there – at every moment. All we have to do is train ourselves to turn 180˚ around – away from the tiny details of teaching and learning – and catch the view of the magnificence of our lives and of this universe we’re a part of. If we’re always on the top of a mountain in my classroom, we might as well enjoy the stunning views.