Forget complaining...smile

Lately, my mind has been filled with anything to do with education. I prefer having these thoughts over anything to do with my other job. My last job was…work. Plain and simple…work. I never spoke of work during my time off except to complain about it. Erika often got an earful of complaints. No one wants to live with a complainer. I hated wasting my life complaining about things that I could do nothing about. Erika advised me on more than one occasion, “Take action. Do something instead of complaining.” I think this was what spurred all the changes that had been made over the past couple of years. The process of taking action has been a long and sometimes difficult road to travel, but the result has been phenomenal. Rather than instantly forgetting my day as soon as I punched the clock, I share with Erika the experiences of educating students each day. Education provides a lot to talk about. I talk about it as soon as I get home, while eating meals, and before going to bed. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I’ll wake up and laugh out loud. I can picture their reactions to a particular English lesson and I laugh. It’s not that it’s so funny, but rather it’s the way the students react to my　unorthodox way of teaching. The 5^th and 6^th graders are used to the regular and straightforward method of teaching…yawn…boring. Mr. Kimball likes to stir things up. I’ll play a song or two on the guitar. I’ll get the students moving around with icebreakers. I’ll change my voice from shouting to whispering. I’ll wave my arms, jump up and down…whatever, to get my lesson across. The students are amused by my silly performances, but they come alive. The students are not stupid. They know when a teacher is honest and cares about them. So much can be said for something as simple as a smile. I find that I’m constantly smiling and so are my students.

George