My Teaching Vision Statement

Recently at a staff meeting, our middle school's principal shared with us her vision statement about education.  I liked that she did this.  Her statement revealed her passion.  Since then, I've thought a lot about my own vision statement for my teaching with more a mindfulness and kindness based philosophy. Right now it is this:

I teach students to think, read, and write 
critically, creatively, and contemplatively. 
I teach students to think, speak, and act
with kindness toward themselves and others. 
I teach students that learning is life long.
I teach students that life is about
becoming the best person they can become.
I teach students that there are wise people and wisdom
to teach them throughout life if they are willing to learn.
I teach students that life is amazing.
I teach student to appreciate each and every moment in their lives, 
including now.

The Door into My Classroom This Winter

I thought of the idea. My sixth grade advisory students created the image.  All of them had to do at least one part. It was fun to see creativity and cooperation from twenty three students.  

The Smallest Connections

This past Friday afternoon during my prep period I walked from the middle school where I teach to the copying center at the high school.  A long hallway connects the two schools.  After I dropped off my copying requests, and I was walking through the high school atrium, a high school student said, “Hi Mr. Eich.  Do you remember me?” 

It's a question I often get from high school students.  I taught them as seventh or sixth graders, and so often I don't remember them.  It's been sometimes five years since I've seen them and they've changed, grown from a middle school student into a high school student, a child into a teen.  Depending upon which year I taught them,  I taught either 300 or 150 students each  year, so it's easy to forget names and often I do. 

“I'm sorry, I don't,” I said to the boy. 

He told me his name and then said, “Do you still like Steely Dan?”

“I do,” I said. 

Then it clicked.  I remembered him. I taught him in the seventh grade.  I have my students write down personal information at the beginning of each year to get to know them better, and he had written that his favorite band was Steely Dan. It was such an unusual choice for a twelve year old boy. I told him I liked Steely Dan and asked him how he knew about this band.  He said his dad took him to a concert.    I brought in a CD of their greatest hits and gave it to him.  This student, now a senior, remembers me because I made a connection with music and gave him a used CD of mine from when I taught him five years ago.  This small connection is what he remembered about me, something I had forgotten, something that really took little effort on my part.

The moment was a great reminder to me as a teacher and as a person—and for all of us—that what we say or do for other people, no matter how small, can make a difference and often is remembered by them long after we forgot.  

Acceptance

Two strategies for achieving happiness: one is to change the external environment to meet the needs (or wants) of the organism; the other is to change the internal state of the organism to adapt itself to the environment.  We can either change the world to satisfy our desires or change our desires by adapting to the world.  Both strategies aim at removing the agitation of desires, one by fulfilling them and the other by relinquishing them. 

From Unlimited Mind: The Radical Experiential Psychology of Buddhism

by Andrew Olendzki (2010)

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.  Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace.

from The Serenity Prayer

by Reinhold Niebuhr (1943)

A Walk Outside My Home