had to explain, in less than two pages, everything that my 21-year-old self believed about teaching. I had barely set foot inside of a classroom when I first wrote this document, but it has only gone through a couple of changes since then.
It's my anchor.
After a hard day or week or year in the classroom, I can look back at this document and remember what it is that I hoped I would become as a teacher. It anchors me to my beliefs and reminds me which areas I still need to work on. You see, this document was written with passion. It was written before I knew about classroom politics and before my world became filled with real students and IEP meetings and parents. I LOVE the real parts of my job. I love working with real people and I love the challenges that the real world of teaching presents, but when I feel a little unsure of where to go next or what I am missing day to day in my classroom, I can reach for the string and pull up the anchor.
Once I've pulled my anchor up, I can drift for a few minutes. I can dream of ideal classrooms filled with large libraries and personal computers for every student. I can dream of small class sizes and rainbows and unicorns. But when I drop that anchor back down, I am grounded. I can handle the workload in front of me because I remember what it is that I believe in and why it was that I entered this profession in the first place. I can realize that it is not all rainbows and butterflies, but I can also recognize that I once believed that it could be. With my anchor safely planted, I can remind myself of that original sparkle in my eye and I can make sure that it stays.
I teach to transform, I coach to transform, I live to transform.
I live to transform those around me and the world that I live in (and myself) into the best versions of themselves (myself) they (I) can be!
And that, my friends, is what makes life so incredible.
Love and Light,
Leah
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