Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.
Chuck Close
Follow the force of your Will as it gets you out of bed and into your classroom by 8:07.
Feel how you use that same force of Will to cohere and direct separate and sometimes even antagonistic children together— day in and day out.
“What you yourself call Will is character and strong disposition. What a sorcerer calls Will is a force that comes from within and attaches itself to the world out there. It comes through the belly, right here, where the luminous fibers are.” Don Juan rubbed his navel to point out the area.
Carlos Castaneda
If you do not teach, you probably think that teaching is about transferring information to children based on knowledge gained from college majors.
Once you do teach, you will quickly learn that TEACHING CHILDREN is more about the CHUTZPAH in your soul than about what you learned in your college major.
A principal asks about us, “Can he handle the kids?” with more urgency than, “How well does she know her subject matter?”
When faced with so much disruptive and disrespectful behavior in children, American school teachers have no other choice but to rise to the occasion within themselves and attend to the emotional needs of the child. Transforming anger into love is the penultimate technique you need for teaching in today’s classroom.
Managing all the disruptive impulses that so many children don’t manage for themselves requires an adult’s spiritual qualities, not so much intellectual— patience, perseverance, decisiveness, self-restraint, a sense of humor, the capacity to maintain a positive attitude, loving kindness.
Recognize that each of these spiritual qualities represents a very high standard for personal adult behavior in any workplace, yet such exemplary patience and self-control are taken for granted of people who work in our nation’s schools.
For today’s willful students, the adult must be ever more willful. For today’s hostile students, we are required to behave with impeccable NON-violence. For today’s impulse-happy students, a wise teacher acts with calm equanimity and humor.
The successful American teacher is inwardly and outwardly unwavering.
Our force of Will in the classroom is strengthened by our own daily practice of a dedicated routine of holistic activity before school each day— prayers, meditation, chanting, drumming, dancing, yoga, Tai Chi, karate, & etc.
If it is possible to gather with colleagues and engage in an appropriate ceremony of preparation communally, even once a week, all the more power to you.
“It is purported that focusing the mind solely on the movements of the form helps to bring about a state of mental calm and clarity.” Wikipedia, TAI CHI
Your first intent as a Guerrilla Teacher should be to access the force of your own will and dedicate it to the “better angels” of your students.
In this aspect of the Work, there is nothing we change outwardly.
The transformation of American public education will begin from within the teachers.
Outside your classroom, your incoming class is gathering. You have gone out into the hall to get the kids in line before admitting them. But instead of using your physical energy for speaking, nagging, threatening, you direct your attention to your navel area. From there you send out something like invisible beams that hold each and every kid on the line.
CONTINUE:
GUERRILLA TEACHING 5/ Push Pedagogy