Читать книгу Start With the Heart - Michelle L. Trujillo - Страница 25

When I was the administrator for an alternative education high school, every day when my students entered the building and every day on their way out the door, my staff and I would slap high fives, shake hands, and offer fist bumps as we said, “Good morning, we love you. We’re glad you’re here today!” Or “Good-bye. We love you! See you tomorrow!” Often, too, I would jump on each bus, before they pulled out to take our students home, just to say, “Oh, and, one more thing . . . I love you!” and all of our wonderfully tough, sometimes scarred, always hopeful students would shout back, “We love you too, Mrs. T!” If ever there was a new student, and often there was, he or she would look around the bus, like, “Have you all lost your minds?! Who is this crazy woman? And, did you really say, ‘We love you’ back?” Inevitably a student would respond with, “I know, right? But just wait, you’ll see.” And this was said with confidence, because our students did “see” our love every day. We showed them by our actions, and as a result, when we told them we loved them, they believed us. For some of them, hearing and believing that someone loved them happened only at school. Continuing to hear that they were loved, and continuing to see us demonstrate our love by our respecting them, holding them to high expectations, and helping them achieve their goals gave these students permission to begin to love themselves. This is an example of how, as Robby Novak says, love can be “lived out” at school.

Living love can also become real when we simply make an effort to authentically connect with other human beings. Although many of us could say we know “how” to connect with others, I would suggest that we must also then admit that we sometimes get caught up in the demands of our jobs and we tend to forget the little things that help us show others that we care and that they matter. In the world of education today, every one of us, from superintendents to support staff, feels overwhelmed at times. And this feeling doesn’t seem to be slowing down or lessening any time soon. Expectations and requirements continue to increase for educators while the amount of time we have to meet these challenges stays the same. Yet we can’t lose sight of the human beings who are the students behind test scores or subpopulations, nor those who are staff members behind stacks of papers or ineffective evaluations. We will find more meaning and fulfillment in our vocations when we take just a moment to be human: by greeting students as they arrive at school and using their names while doing so or by stopping a colleague in the hall to check in and say hello. Every act of connecting with the human beings in our midst can relieve our feelings of being overwhelmed, increase student achievement, and improve the general school climate.