Yesterday, after my last
graduation ceremony at the school where I’ve been teaching for 35 years, a
surprising thought came to me: Now I can
begin being a full-time teacher. The sky was clearing after days of storms,
and my mind seemed to be clearing also – seemed to be seeing previously unseen
and somewhat startling possibilities. Teaching, it seemed for those few
moments, is not just about being in a classroom with students, but about living
a teaching kind of life. It’s about teaching all the time, and tirelessly, and
with the same steadiness with which I breathe and think. It’s about teaching
not just how to read and write, but how to live a loyal and lighthearted life.
I realized, as I drove home from graduation with Delycia, that now I’m starting
a new kind of teaching career -- as a street instructor, so to speak, a
moment-by-moment mentor, a casual kind of coach, a tutor who takes on students
anytime and anywhere. In the years to come, I can teach in countless ways -- by
talking courteously to a store clerk, by picking up something someone dropped,
by listening with honest interest to anyone anywhere. Most importantly, I can
teach myself by treating each moment as
both a puzzle and a playful partner. I can prepare lesson plans on how I can
praise each hour. I can lecture myself on letting go and lightening up. I can
give myself quizzes on caring and sharing. My classroom can be our couch or a
street corner or the silent seashore at night. In this new career, I can live
and teach like my lungs lift and fall, steadily and necessarily.
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