House of Zathras

I was tagged by the great and wonderful Ambulance Driver to do this meme:

A PASSION QUILT

THE RULES:
Post a picture or make/take/create your own that captures what YOU are most passionate for students to learn about.

Give your picture a short title.

Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt.”

Link back to this blog entry.

Include links to 5 (or more) educators.

So, here goes:

‘You’d Better Think’

Ambulance Driver wanted his students to discover their gifts, and honor them (the picture AD has is absolutely perfect for his post!). The Cranky Professor, who had tagged AD, wanted his students to have the ‘power of laughter’.

Both of those passions are very honorable and necessary. But the one thing I would like for my students to learn, above all else, is to think for themselves. Today, too many kids are thinking like everybody else does, but call it self-expression. Bullshit. That is actually ‘going with the crowd’. Take the time to see what it is you really want to do and WHY you want to do it.

The internet and video games are also keeping kids (and adults) from thinking for themselves. They teach ‘reaction’ not ‘proaction’. I tell my students we all make mistakes, and we can learn from them. I point out when I make mistakes, and I shouldn’t be embarrassed by them. It’s how you THINK about the mistake and then the next action you take that can make you a better person.

Don’t let other people and the media do your thinking for you. Study alternative points of view. Analyze. Apply to your life and your future. While my students aren’t at the higher level of analysis, I relate it to simple things like finding a really neat toy on the playground. If it’s not yours, you don’t keep it. You try to find to whom it belongs. Think about how the other person feels about losing their toy. Think about how you would feel. Think about doing the right thing. Think about doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching. Think about doing the right thing even if everybody is watching.

Think about being true to yourself. That’s what I want my students to learn.

*************

Now, I’d better ‘think’ about some folks to tag! I think I will pick some ‘parent’ bloggers, because parents are, after all, the first teachers a child ever has.

ArmyWifeToddlerMom: Her Easter-day post fit in so perfectly with my ‘thinking’ theme.

LadyBug: She teaches her kids AND teaches adults hand-bells.

VW Bug: A wonderful, brave Mom who actually cooks with her young kids! Far braver than I.

Tink: A mom and grandma who teaches lovely things through the lens of her camera.

Joel: A fellow Catholic whose faith can inspire me.

UPDATE:  I didn’t forget you, Bob.  I thought AD had tagged you, but it was your comment I saw on his post.  You are one of the most inspiring teachers I know.  You and your wife teach so much about compassion, love, and acceptance.

And anyone else who feels inspired can tag themselves. We need all the good teachers we can get.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 at 12:21 pm and is filed under Mrs. Who Said What??, School Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.