Friday, February 25, 2011
Wk 4 Reading Ch's 9-12
This week I enjoyed reading about "the life force" within the Ninth Practice, "Lighting a Spark". The author stated that it is, "nothing more or less than the passionate energy to connect, express, and communicate". It is through enrollment that we are able to light a spark with our students, families, or friends. We must allow them the opportunity to enroll in the task, contribute, and give in order for the spark to light. Then the spark can ignite and become a flame spreading to the families, friends, and coworkers of those we just allowed to enroll. It is easy to light the fire when we carry the spark. We must not let the negativity of budgets and teacher lounge talk water our spark and send us into the downward spiral.
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Hello Diane!
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more and really enjoyed this chapter. I feel all of us carry a spark and how we relate that spark to others makes the difference on how we enroll them. I know when I'm excited and passionate about what we are doing in the classroom my students tend to be more open, excited and engaged. My background was not in education when I went into teaching and applied practices that I really loved about the teachers that impacted me and the one thing that was always evident was their passion for teaching, their students and ways to inspire them. The first time I really noticed how my demeanor effected how my students were was the year I was going through my divorce. It was a very difficult time in my personal life and I was not carrying that spark I normally had in my classroom and my students were not as enrolled that whole time as I wished they were when I wasn't carrying the outside world in with me.
Diane,
ReplyDeleteI agree it is important that we as teachers try to create a spark so that the students will get "on fire" for learning. Students can make a difference in the world it is just a matter of motivating them to do something big.
I wonder what would have happened had I shared this book with my co-workers at the last public middle school... would it have helped them re-discover the spark that they all began with? When they announced that they were converting the school to a vocational high school over the next three years, that would require staff cuts of 1/3 per year and then whoever wanted postions at the new high school would have to under go an interview process, I wonder how many of them saw this as a possibility to relight the spark? I wonder...
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