Celebrating Your Labor

9/1/17 Celebrating Your Labor

Toil. The Grind. Making a living. Working like a dog. We have so many idioms surrounding work because it’s a huge part of our lives. You come to work every day and spend 8 to 10 hours doing what you do in your chosen profession. Maybe that profession is your “calling,” and maybe it’s just how you pay the bills every month. Either way, I know you put your best into it. You try to be creative in solving problems and use integrity in your decisions. You labor.

You are a laborer. Whether you work with your hands or sit at a desk, you are producing and processing and helping all that goes into making our economy work and making our nation better. When you give it your all, you are making a difference. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote that, “All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.” We certainly uplift in our work. We strive for those who need our support to get to a different plane. Education is the single greatest factor in upward social mobility. We labor for good. 

Cultivating Success

7/13/15 Cultivating Success

As I drive my hands into the sun-warmed garden soil to till or sow and squish my bare toes into the cooling leaf mulch while pruning, fertilizing and watering lush plants that will yield fruits to nourish my family, I can’t help but have my soul filled, my spirit energized and my body satisfied. I know that I am making the world a better place by adding beauty and nutrients to our lives. Throughout my labor, I keep drawing analogies between the process of sowing and growing things with the work of an educator. As Liberty Hyde Bailey writes, “A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.” 

Can we avoid comparing gardening with our work as educators? Replace the word garden with “student success” and plants with “students.” Even as we think about the “difficult” students we deal with, consider Emerson’s thoughts on that, “What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.”  Thus: What is an unsuccessful student? A student whose virtues have never been discovered. 

We are cultivating our students’ ambitions, critical thinking, and- really- their future. We are improving our cultural landscape by providing the necessary fertile soil of creativity and ingenuity. We are making the present and future better by growing healthier and more conscientious citizens. Grow a student today. When he blossoms, you will know you have done something amazing for the world.

A Total Eclipse of Our Attention?

8/21/17 Eclipsed?

Has the Solar Eclipse eclipsed our attention to anything else? It seems to be all we want to talk about. Will this ever end? Short answer? Yes.

Often, we will say that one person or situation eclipsed another; meaning the new person or situation overtook the other. In my head, though, as I compare this phrase to the actual eclipse we will experience, I am reminded that the moon only eclipses the sun for a very short time. So, as whatever current concern “eclipse” all other issues in our work, we need to remember that these other needs will reemerge as the currently exigent situation passes. Because… it WILL pass- just as the moon passes the sun.

Also, there is danger in the eclipse in that it cannot take all of our focus. We can’t stare at it. Likewise, there is danger in allowing ALL of our focus to fall on whatever our current emergency is. Why? Because there will ALWAYS be a current emergency eclipsing other plans. If we only ever jump from one emergent need to the next emergent need, cosmic or otherwise, we will fail to be prepared. We will only ever be reacting. We must be much more strategic. We must not allow the current situation the Universe dropped on our laps to eclipse our long term strategy. Why? Because the universe is still in constant motion. And, because the world still turns. And, especially because the sun will come out tomorrow… uh… and today… again.