The problem with being profound

The problem with being profound is that it rarely happens.  As new as I am to the blogging world, I am already experiencing feelings of "What will I say this week?" and "Will it be poignant, relevant, and just the right amount of witty?".  When I was first introduced to the idea of educational blogging at MEMSPA, one of the presenters, Ben Gilpin, warned the audience not to focus on being profound.  But rather to keep plugging away at it.  Not every post will be riveting, and not every entry will be a grand slam.  However, we should keep at it and keep working on improving communication and the sharing of ideas.

As I thought about this (and my lack of an inspirational message), I thought about the challenges that teachers face in creating exciting and relevant lessons each and every day.  This week, I learned in a leadership seminar led by Debbie McFalone, that the average teacher facilitates 900 lessons a year.  That's a lot of time to be "on the spot" and engaging!  And while it's great to have those magic moments when your lesson is awe inspiring and perhaps life changing for a child, many of them may be simply covering the curriculum.  They won't all be grand slams, but a good teacher will do their best to make them all relevant, engaging, and meaningful. Teaching 900 lessons  a year isn't for the faint of heart, it's for the dedicated, creative and constantly improving professionals that I believe most teachers are (or aspire to be).

So, going back to my baseball analogy, I thought it was more important to get a lot of hits than the occasional grand slam. My original intent in creating this blog was to communicate with staff in a more dynamic way and to share some of my philosophy and experiences in an effort to make meaningful connections.  In the same way, teachers' lessons aren't all going to be grand slams, but if most are hits and the targeted objectives are covered in a meaningful and engaging way, it will lead to a winning scenario for our students.  Keep swinging away!!

PEARLS OF WISDOM

"Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way." - Charles Bukowski

"The simplest questions are the most profound." - Richard Bach 
"The most profound statements are often said in silence." - Lynn Johnson

photo credit: eahealth.com