Wednesday, January 18, 2012

A MORE FITTING AND PERFECT WAY

This morning my shower showed me something new about teaching. For years I have usually entered the shower at the front, by the faucets and the shower head, but this morning, for some reason, I decided to enter from the back, and what happened will help me be a better teacher today. As I stepped in, I realized -- ta-da! -- that the spray from the shower head was not hitting me, and that therefore I could gradually get myself under the shower's waterfall, instead of  being assaulted in a sudden and disagreeable way at the front of the shower. It was an instant realization, and it made me wonder why I've been such a simplelton all these years of showering. I thought about this incident later in the morning, and it began to look like a small light to shine on my teaching. How many times, I wondered, have I done something in my classroom simply because I’ve always done it that way, like always stepping into the shower from the front and being instantly soaked with water? How many fresh and simple truths about teaching are sitting in front of me, waiting to be discovered, like this morning when I went into the shower from one end instead of the other and found a more fitting and perfect way?
  

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