Tuesday, March 15, 2011

WHAT I NEED

"Morning Pasture", oil on board, by David Larson Evans
Like most teachers, I sometimes feel ill at ease during class because I seem to need something that I don’t have, but usually this thought comes to my rescue: all I ever need is a change of thought. It is, for sure, a strange fact that I frequently seem to have countless needs during class – for a superior lesson, for an advanced set of behavior benchmarks, even for a new class of smarter and more amenable students. I can easily fall into the mindset of making up new needs each time a crisis seems to occur. The secret to recovering from this frame of mind is the straightforward truth that fresh and enriching thoughts are all I ever have need of. A simple change in a teacher’s thinking can instantly sweep a classroom clean of a sense of confusion and failure, and suddenly all is as new as morning. The change can be as instantaneous as turning on a lamp in a gloomy room -- and it is the only change I will ever need.

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