Teaching Journal

Day 151, Tuesday, May 26, 2009

 

     Today I was reminded about the importance of patience in my work as a teacher – the importance of simply waiting. It’s a simple word but it represents an enormously challenging task. Climbing a mountain, running a long race, or surviving a terminal illness may not be as hard as just plain learning to wait. We all love getting, but waiting for what we want to get is another thing altogether. This morning I learned a small lesson in this area. I had given an assignment on the projector screen and was ready to move on to the next item on my lesson plan, when, thankfully, I noticed that one boy was still writing the assignment down. For some reason, this registered with me (whereas usually it might have flown right past me), and I decided to wait until everyone was ready to proceed. It took only a short time, but in the silent classroom it was a meaningful few minutes. We sat quietly and performed one of the most powerful and difficult of human actions -- waiting.