"Why Teachers Lose Their Faith..."

"Calm mind brings inner strength and self-confidence, so that's very important for good health." - Dali Lama

"How do I keep my faith?" "How do I stay positive?" For twelve years of my teaching career, I've asked these same questions with no definitive answer or methodology except for this...The success I've had has been directly related to giving my students, my kids, a purpose.  Without purpose, no one moves a muscle to go further in their growth or in their happiness. I have witnessed and experienced a great deal of heartache as a teacher of junior high students.  At the same time, I have witnessed and experienced a happiness and a joy beyond anything I could have imagined and that almost was not a possibility.  Giving kids a purpose, energizes them and makes them eager to learn.  That's what I've been doing these past years and now I understand that purpose and gratitude creates the mobility we need to see in our young people.

In my twenties, I was told many times over that I wouldn't make it as a teacher. Being just shy of 4'11" in height,  I was told I wasn't physically able to manage a classroom of high school students. (True story.)   That was told to me at the age of 26 by a professor at college. I was told this by principals and teachers early on in my career who lacked innovation, creativity and yet, were as negative and deplorable as one can be. This was back in 1987. Teaching jobs were at a premium then. Today, I look at my past career path and realize that as ugly as it was, I took the next twenty years and went into the business world and grew up and licked my wounds. I had managers and  supervisors who allowed me to grow without fear, without provocation, and thankfully, respectfully my strength and my confidence grew.  That's what we need to do with our teachers.  We need to encourage them to find and then keep their joy and let them be comfortable in their own skin.

Why do teachers lose faith?  The answer is because it's still too easy to crush their enthusiasm by not empowering them and accepting their individuality to grow as a teacher.  We are shocked and disgusted when this happens to our kids. We should not be doing this to our new teachers either. More and more students are becoming "reluctant learners."  At the same time, teacher shortages are being predicted.   Apparently, fewer and fewer people are seeing the positives to a teaching career.  Education is going by the wayside and the smart phone and iPhone are replacing our ability to focus on the fundamentals of communication, learning and even more importantly, manners.  If a student can't learn with any kind of immediate gratification, then learning has no value.

The cell phone has replaced any need for patience.  The cell phone surrounds us with twenty-four hour narcissism and this is hurting the teaching profession and it's hurting our kids, who, by the way are my kids for forty-two minutes, five periods a day.  

We all love our phones.  But in the hands of those without a fully developed hypothalamus, they are deadly.  We have plenty of proof of this too and should make all of us pause.  There has to be a shift in how we look at education.  Some of the good old-fashioned fundamentals really are healthy fundamentals that build a strong society with a sense of purpose. 

A couple of days before school let out for the summer, we were told to pack up our classrooms so they could be cleaned properly.  Before I knew it, I had students in my room, who weren't motivated to even bring a pencil to class, come and not only help me but redecorate my classroom for September.  They needed purpose and so I let them claim one for themselves.  As the last day before summer ended, I looked around my room and thought,  all that work, and not one of them looked at their phone.  Purpose.  We all need a purpose. Perhaps that is way we gain our faith when we need it most.