Doing the Work - But Why?

    I have said many times that teaching feels like something to mark off my checklist. The truth is, I like teaching, but I don't love teaching. I think what I love is the experience of making meaningful experiences to share with others. There are a number of ways that people can accomplish this. Outside the classroom, we share meals, learn new things, and discover new places. However, there is a common component between both the classroom and the aforementioned activities - people do it with others. There are also two things that make a classroom, a classroom: the teacher and the students. You can have a classroom without a teacher, but what does it matter? Who then does a teacher have to share knowledge with? And likewise, with only students, what else do you have besides a gathering of learners with no one to learn from? An essential facet of teaching is the collaboration and convergence of knowledge between teachers and students. 

    Part of the classroom collaboration process includes the crocheting of identities. Parker Palmer tells us that identity “lies in the intersection of the diverse forces that make up [our] life” (p. 14). Notice here how identity is not a single thing, but rather a conglomeration of things that our lives are comprised of. Under this definition, I am many things. Up in the atmosphere of my classroom, my own identity intertwines among my students’ identities. Together we create. The collaboration process becomes the push and pulls of our collective energy and knowledge. Together, and only together, we create meaning to bring outside the classroom and into our lives. Teaching for me goes beyond the classroom and expands into greater life.

    So even during the days that teaching feels like a part of the checklist, a means to an end, I take comfort in knowing that my desire to make meaningful experiences is of value in the experiential classroom and is also part of my identity. I think this is where heart work comes into play for me. I spend so much time thinking about grades and making powerpoints and measuring others’ performance that I lose sight of the heart’s place in collaborative learning, especially my own heart. In my own pedagogy, the heart becomes a critical tool in teaching. The heart is devoid of the silly checkboxes I am so often subjected to mark through by the education system when I'm collaborating.

    My mere desire to create meaning with my students is an important component of education that I believe in. I can rest easy knowing that as I move forward in my life, exploring options and learning, I know a little bit more about my identity as a “heart worker”. My identity is an important part of my own fulfillment and perhaps without teaching I would’ve never realized this. Perhaps teaching is one of the most important checklist items of all despite the difficulties I’ve had in navigating my identity as a teacher. In my current season #heartworkishardwork while I’m doing heart work on myself, and on my students. I’m allowing my heart to be open to my students which is something very scary for me. I’m fostering a space of meaning-making and choosing to be vulnerable in order to learn more about myself (and others) in the process. I’m doing what I can do be a good teacher, alongside a million other things, and that is okay. I’m doing the work, and the reason is my heart.