I’ve been spending a wonderful Christmas with family and friends in Canada over the holidays.  Lots of activity, birthdays along with parties and the regular Christmas meetings and greetings.  It got me really thinking about life and especially the glue that keeps all life together – relationships.

In our teaching we get so zoned in, too consumed and absorbed by the particular.  I mean, we are overwhelmed by minutiae and in a way “the devil is in the details”. Marks, assignments, rules, methods, readings, certification, textbooks, attendance, discipline, theory, materials, homework, paperwork mask and distract us from  the core of what teaching is all about – relationships.   The people we meet, the students we help, the colleagues we learn from and are inspired by ….

I won’t belabor the point. Just want to wish all my teaching friends – online or off, having met through my few words I offer now and then or having met flesh and bone – just want to wish everyone a very Merry Holiday and send along the message of how important relationships are.  Treasure them, they are the glue that holds everything together and makes everything we do “work”. Teach with an open heart that lets others in and the learning will happen.

Holiday Greetings and peace and goodwill to all.

David

You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.  ~Frederick Buechner