"Good teachers possess a capacity for connectedness. They are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves. The methods used by these weavers vary widely: lectures, Socratic dialogues, laboratory experiments, collaborative problem solving, creative chaos. The connections made by good teachers are held not in their methods but in their hearts--meaning heart in its ancient sense, as the place where intellect and emotion and spirit and will converge in the human" (11)According to Palmer, these heart connections require courage as "[t]he courage to teach is the courage to keep one's heart open in those very moments when the heart is asked to hold more than it is able so that teacher and students and subject can be woven in the fabric of community that learning, and living, require" (11).
This Friday, take some time to write down either your teaching heart or about the sense of connection you see in your own classroom. Use this writing time as a space to rejuvenate.
Call for Blog Posts: Teacher, how do you rejuvenate after a week of teaching? Would you be willing to share? We here at the RRVWP blog are looking for short blog posts about Teacher Rejuvenation. Email your short inspirational or rejuvenating article to redrivervalleywritingproject@gmail.com. Thanks!
P.S. Remember there is a book giveaway happening in the comments this October. Comment on any blog post in October and be entered in a drawing for a signed copy of Winger by Andrew Smith.
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