Tonight I was out weeding the garden. It's been raining cats and dogs here, so I haven't been able to get out there for a while. It was weedy! I was trying to yank handfuls of weeds out at a time and all I was getting was fistfuls of leaves, keeping the nasty roots to the weeds intact. It made me think about how this relates to life and my calling as an educator.
When I was trying to pull out tons of weeds at once, it was messy and unsuccessful. When I focused on one weed at a time, I was able to get the whole thing out, roots and all. There were/are maany weeds, but small steps make progress toward getting the job done.
In life and in my classroom, I have to focus on one thing at a time. Trying to tackle all many things at once can end up messing with many incomplete jobs. Focused, small steps get the job done well. This is huge for me to remember as I enter a new grade level and new school next year!
What lessons from nature have you experienced that relate to your life, school, or classroom?
I have been trying to be more of a "green thumb" around the house. A few lessons that come to mind:
ReplyDelete1) Weeding is often tedious, detailed work. Just when I think all of the weeds are pulled, more seem to become visible.
Lesson: just when a new strategy seems to be working, the bar is raised a bit and the fog makes way for a new challenge.
2) Planting seeds takes time and effort - often with long-term, but unknown-at-the-time benefits.
Lesson: Taking a risk to try something new can be a scary effort, but what makes it even harder is waiting to see the long-term yield, if there is any to be observed.
Great analogies, Matt! Thanks for sharing. The seed one is something I think of often!
ReplyDelete