Love Works

COMMITMENT:

COMMITMENT
We will not Waver: We will not Tire:  We will not Falter:  And we will not Fail. 

G.W. Bush 2001
(From our middle school office wall) 

What do you remember from school?  Courses, content, lunch, gym class, friends or trouble?

This seems like a strange title for a business book.  Business typically seems focused on the bottom dollar yet anomaly and exception dot the landscape.  Good to Great, Malcom Gladwell, The Way of the Shepard and this Love Works, are just a few endorsing a compassion based priority where people actually come before profits. Case study and anecdote alike verify the effectiveness of building relationships as a means to the ends in many ventures!  And this is the business world.

Now consider the educational system today.  Teachers spend 175 days a year with groups of students.  A grade or topic is assigned, curriculum assembled and assessments tallied!  Then we do it again.  Over and over in order to perpetuate our society.  A democracy requires an educated population.  

This responsibility or burden is publically assigned the classroom teacher!  Of course the family retains ultimate and direct influence but our system carries the load.  One look at state budgets confirms the value society places on education.  But clashes, conflicts and concerns arise when these are not aligned: 

When children are taken advantage of by selfish adults

When sarcasm replaces compassion

When a raised voice is chosen over a conversation

These examples are just a few indicators of holes in our systems.  Of course we can point fingers of blame, develop initiatives of influence and tout the need for change but without the effective teacher, nothing will happen.  Status quo is not good enough for everyone.  We can't allow our youth to loose their hope.  

Buried in this essay...

A teacher is often times the best instigator of hope or fear in a child.  Basic needs such as routine, security, procedures and safety are often lacking in students lives, TILL THEY MEET THE TEACHER! Once The Teacher enters the life of a student that has given up hope, all bets are off!  The Teacher changes lives.  The Teacher uses a content, subject matter, lessons, daily routines and habits to reach into a students life, then makes a connection.  After this crucible called a classroom has endured the messy tests of relationship building, The Teacher has an opportunity to make incredible impacts by influencing students like no other adults in a students life!  The Teacher models hope, inspires, and changes the course of life after life! The Teacher influences today and tomorrow.   A single, influential teacher can't help but to influence.  After so much time is spent together, impact is inevitable. The Teacher inspires hope.  Hope is the positive motivator of change.  

Fear is the negative influence of change. 

The relationships good teachers have with struggling teachers build the foundation for success.  Just how the business world applies relationship skills the effect the bottom line, teachers use them to effect  lives.

Quotes, thoughts and tags:

A rut is just a grave with the ends kicked out.

Good discipline does not diminish hope.

Hope and fear are the two motives for human behavior!

The teacher comes along when the pupil is ready.

Keep up the good work!  Think outside the box!  Use all the supports available.  Love them all.  What happens now is FINALLY serious.  Everything up to here was shallow, yet foundational to the impact currently underway.  This part is the process.  Influence is not an event but a process!  :)