"Embrace the Steely Silence"

Had my high school observation lesson plan yesterday, asked a question about if a texture was a person, what would this texture's mood be? It was like all the crickets in the world congregated in that one room. However, I embraced those crickets and it allowed for making us all feel so awkward, finally people began stating what a personified texture may be like and act like. It was a helpful exercise, that taught having a purpose behind including texture with a piece of ceramics. But I'f I hadn't embraced that silence, I would have never gotten their brains working in the out of the box direction I wanted it to start working in, for the lesson plan.

The Excitement of Our Youth

About a month ago, I was headed home to see my brother who had just arrived home from his fourth term in Afghanistan. It was an incredible weekend, but on my way home as I neared closer to central New York (Syracuse area) I passed an overhead walking bridge with a mother and two children on it, I saw them from about 100 yards away as they excitedly waved at every car that passed. As I passed that bridge I eagerly waved back and with much surprise I saw the children's mother began waving back as a confirmation of seeing me. It only lasted one split second but I had made a connection with those kid's and their parent without doing anything other than raising my hand and acknowledging their kind gestures. After I passed, I found myself smiling for about 30 seconds, and thinking to myself of how wonderful a young child's excitement towards all aspects of life are, and the fact that it makes me so happy to see that and furthermore, the fact that I think about those things at all always leave me feeling like I'm undoubtedly doing the right thing in becoming an educator. I know that it is a natural phenomenon to grow older and lose that genuine almost unreasonable excitement for all things under the sun. But I'd always like to keep some of those aspects, especially when teaching, no matter how old my student's, I feel as though if you share that kind of excitement with your student's there is no way that they wouldn't share it back. It was a really great omen to start the rest of my weekend, because for the rest of that weekend I shared that unadulterated excitement that those children had for the passing cars, with my own excitement for seeing my brother, and being reunited as a whole family, feeling blessed, feeling whole, feeling content with the simplest of pleasures.