My Why

At the beginning of the school year, my principal asked us to come up with our “why”- why are we teaching? Why are we showing up every day? This was a no brainer for me: I am here to help kids think. If I can help them think about things at a deeper level than before they got to me, I will be satisfied. As I see it, we have a thinking deficit occurring in epidemic proportions in our society. Many of my colleagues express dissatisfaction with a generation possessing learned helplessness and extreme egocentricism. I often wonder about the merit of this, and if it’s true, what’s to be done? That’s where thinking comes in.

When people are empowered with thinking tools, they can see the world beyond their noses. They can create; they can consider the less obvious.  In many ways, this is what Slavin (2012) describes as transfer or “the application of knowledge acquired in one situation to new situations” (p. 205). With transfer as the desired outcome for all lessons, students have an increased chance that they will feel empowered with useful skills to navigate the world and perhaps begin to see more complicated situations beyond their individual bubbles.  

This is the reason for my why. As a huge fan of Sir Ken Robinson, I have often been inspired by many things he has said or written, but one snippet in particular always resonated with me: “All children start their school careers with sparkling imaginations, fertile minds, and a willingness to take risks with what they think” (BrainyQuote, 2015). It pains me to think that this gets squeezed out of kids when we need their creative juices to make advancements in our world. Problems are solved when people are able to analyze, reflect, initiate, create, and persevere. That’s my why. I just gotta get em thinking. We need them to.

BrainyQuote (2015). Ken Robinson quotes. Retrieved from  http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/k/ken_robinson.html#dePxbXUxVsH1M57q.99

Slavin, R. E. (2012). Educational psychology: Theory and practice (Tenth ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.