This is an excerpt from the introduction to my new book Teaching is Being: Embracing the Educator Within. I’m so excited to share it with you. I’m hoping to have it available by the end of July. Enjoy:
When your job is dealing with other human beings every day, day in and day out, you cannot act as an automaton, a robot.
You have to feel.
You have to intuit.
You have to engage.
And so it is with teachers.
You can learn your theory. You can reflect on your pedagogy. You can decide on a particular philosophical stance based on your understanding of Skinner or Piaget or Robinson or even the TED Talk you saw last week. And that’s as it should be. Every educator I know, including me, does that before they plan a single lesson.
The truth is, once you’re in the classroom, standing in front of 30 or so young people and trying desperately to share with them the information you know will improve their lives, you put all that other stuff behind you and must rely on the inner landscape of your heart to get you through.
Here’s the thing:
Data is good.
Numbers are helpful.
Standardized Testing is import–okay, let’s not get carried away here.
And the shelves are filled with books that talk about how to create, use, and interpret data to improve your teaching practice. Tomes about which pedagogical approach is best (and worst). Volumes about how to use the latest technology to design meaningful, in-depth, and engaging lessons (holographic presentations in the class are probably closer than we care to admit, am I right?)
And those books are meaningful, significant, and helpful.
This is not that book.
My greatest disappointment and frustration with the deep, moving, and profoundly noble profession of teaching is often that it is exactly this intangible, heart-centered approach to teaching that is dismissed and ignored. Embracing the educator within is exactly what this book will be putting under the microscope so that you can hone this very critical element of your practice.
If you want to be an excellent, effective educator, connecting to your heart is a skill that simply cannot be disregarded.
As I head into the twilight of my career, this book is my love letter to the educators who will come after me, imploring them not to dismiss their feelings or intuition.
I hope you’ll come with me on this journey of looking inside.
Of exploring the inner terrain of the education profession.
The terrain where teaching connects to the most human parts of you.
Your heart. Your spirit. Your very soul.
That’s what this book is about.
This book seeks to remind us that teaching is being open, empathetic, and calm.
Teaching is being knowledgeable, sure, but it’s also about being intuitive, understanding, and peaceful.
Teaching is often about exploring the full range of emotions.
Teaching is about being exhausted, saddened, and disappointed.
But teaching is also about being focused.
Teaching is about being enthusiastic, joyful, and human.
In the end, teaching is being. TZT