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A professor once told me that an educator is one who creates a legacy. A legacy is described as touching the lives of people in ways that are unaware to them or motivates them in becoming something special as a productive member of society.
In order to create a legacy, you need to be a contributor by granting greatness while not constantly thinking about the burdens in life. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 of the book “Art of Possibility” discuss this concept in detail through the lives of individuals and their families.
As an educator in my 3rd year, I have realized that I have the ability to touch people's lives and their families through education. Educating students in subject content is not enough. We need to educate students to become a better people. In my first year, I was exposed to students with very little expectations as to how they will live their lives next week. Instead of teaching Algebra, I felt the need to help transform them to a student ho can organize themselves. With this new skill, students were able to organize their thoughts and notes for easy extraction later. This provided motivation to these students when they were rewarded with higher academic marks when taking assessments.
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Sometimes you can reach everyone. This is where "Rule Number 6" comes into play (Zander, 2000). Do not make this process a chore. Do not make this responsibility a burden that you must undertake. You do what you can and move on. You hope to touch the lives of enough individuals that will help improve society. While living in your own environment, remain positive with how life looks. Your attitude and always remaining hopeful does rub off on others.
Zander, R. & Zander, B., (2000), “The art of possibility”, Harvard Business School Press, p.97
1 comment:
There's no greater human enterprise than education and educating the next generation. My ah-ha moment came when I discovered that, contrary to the naysayers, I can use technology to make connections with students in a way not possible otherwise. But in the end it's what I do with the technology and not the technology itself. I knew this as a face-to-face educator. Something as simple as just taking the time to listen to a student can make all the difference in the world. :-)
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