Hope from the heart
If we tap into our heart, we will ALWAYS find the answer. It doesn’t matter if we are struggling or if our students are struggling, if we pause and check in with our heart, we will find the direction and the pathway that will lead us to resolution and peace. Right now, we are all living from a place of fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of not being enough for our students or them not being enough to meet our expectations. Fear of failure. Fear of not being able to provide what our students needed before this crisis, during this crisis or for the rest of the school year. FEAR = Feeling Every Added Regret. Regrets of the monkey mind. Fictional tales of regret we allow ourselves to make up in our minds like the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future from a Charles Dickens novel.
Regrets of the past… did I do enough for my students to prepare them for this test or current situation? Why didn’t I learn more technology so that I could be better prepared to teach online now? Where could I have even found the time to do more? Why didn’t I try harder? Why didn’t my students try harder and do better? How could I have not seen this coming? When did all this get so out of control? Why didn’t I do something differently? Why can’t things work out the way I planned? Why didn’t I bring more things home with me? Why didn’t I/the district/parents have a plan in place for something like this? I/we/they should have done this, should have done that.
Regrets of the present… how am I going to do all this that is being asked of me by parents and the district? Why can’t I get it together? Why is all this happening? Where is this all coming from? When am I going to find the time and energy to do all that’s being expected of me? Who else wants something from me that I can’t give at this time? What is going on with my students? Why are they not responding and showing up? Why isn’t this working? What’s going on at home? Are my students safe and getting enough to eat? What do they need, and how can I help them? Why is this so hard? How can I possibly balance my personal needs with what the district/my students/parents/family/friends want and need from me? How am I going to get through this? Who is going to help me? Where can I find the resources I need to do my job well? How can the district/parents/students expect me to do this without more support/pay/respect/help/resources, etc? Why are my colleagues/students/parents/administrators/office staff/district/state/DOE not doing more? What if this doesn’t work? What do I do? Do I need to get out of teaching? I just don’t know anymore what I can do.
Regrets of the future…When is this ever going to end or get better? What is going to happen to my students? What about grades? What about the students who will need extra help or have special needs? How am I going to help them? Where am I going to find the resources and the support I need and that they need? Who else is going to step up and help? Am I going to be the only one doing this? What will happen if I fail? What will happen if my students don’t do what I expect and/or they fail? What am I going to do if the technology doesn’t work or if my students don’t have computers or the internet or if they just don’t show up and there is no accountability? What’s going to happen next year when I get students who didn’t learn what they needed to learn this year because of all this? What is going to happen to my students next year when they are not prepared enough for the next grade/level/subject? Will anything ever be normal again in teaching?
Maya Angelou wisely advised us that fear and hope cannot exist together and that we must invite one to stay and one to leave. So, in these unprecedented times of fear for ourselves and our students, we must invite hope to stay in our hearts and rise up to meet the challenges of these fears that we face. We must focus on Maslow above Bloom’s. We must tap into the heart and meet ourselves and our students there…from my heart to their hearts to our hearts.
Get still, close your eyes, place your hand on your heart, take a deep breath in, be open and curious and feel the answers to these questions…right here, right now:
- What is real, and what am I making up in my head?
- Why am I making up these stories? What purpose do they serve?
- How can I be more aware of the messages in my heart and act from there?
- What do I need to feel more peace and hope in order to move forward?
- How can I be more loving and kind with myself, my students, my colleagues, my parents, my administrators?
- What are they going through, and how is it similar to what I am going through?
- How do they feel, and how is it the same and different than what I am feeling? Why?
- What can I do to bring peace, love and grace to this situation?
- How can I make a difference? How can I help? How can I make things better for my students/parents/colleagues/administrators/my family/myself?
- Where can I start, and what small, baby, action steps do I need to take that are manageable in this place and at this time?
- What “permission slips” or “allowance of forgiveness” or “free passes” do I need to give out to myself and others in order to manage all of these demands?
This is where we start. These are the essential questions and our objectives for planning the lessons that need to be learned. It is Backward Design at its best. Start with the end in mind, which will ALWAYS be the lessons that resonate in the heart of humanity and in the hearts of us all. That is what real education is about. And when you feel FEAR knocking at your door, remember to put your hand on your heart and circle back around to these essential questions. If you do, you will always have the answers, direction and pathway that you need to gracefully find the hopes in your heart that will help you realize any dream come true, for you and your students!
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