Sometimes we make teaching too complicated…

The task of modern educators is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts. ~ C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943)

Inspire your students to learn, and the rest takes care of itself. Inspire them to be great at something. Inspire them to take initiative, to lead, and to seek wisdom.

As we finish out this school year, I want to share with you something that I saw on social media this morning. I would have used this immediately in the classroom. It honestly grieves me to see the boring content of standardized and benchmark assessments. Students could be learning from something like this by Henry Kirkwood Filmmaking…

Sometimes we make teaching and learning too complicated. Sometimes it is just as simple as sharing something that is amazing, and letting the synaptic connections in their brains do the rest.

As we finish out this year, may we remember that experience is the best teacher. It is singing in a nursing home. It is unloading a helicopter during Hurricane Helene relief. It is swimming stroke for stroke in a final with an able competitor, and seeing who can touch the wall first. It is sitting in the stands at Lucas Field while National Champions are crowned, and getting to hear that not once but twice in a student’s lifetime! It is sitting in the stands at Hayward Field behind two parents willing their child across the finish line, and hearing a mom squeal for joy as her son qualifies for the Olympics. It is learning to persevere, to get back up again, and to seize important moments…freezing those moments in time as way points.

And yes, learning is sitting vicariously in the middle of blue fin tuna as they jet towards fleeing garfish at 30mph, and nabbing them mid-air.

Only the best educators understand this.

(Licenced thumbnail photo by TIck-Tock)