Passion

     Recently I started blogging about teaching. I’ve not taught for very long, only four years; however, teachers learn a great deal standing and delivering on a daily basis. In the first post I listed ten things I would tell new teachers. “Teach your passion” topped the list. I’d like to explore the idea of teaching your passion a bit more. I was asked to interview a prospective teacher and they said that they chose their subject area, history, in order to enhance their prospects. They loved coaching, PE, and health; however, someone told them that employment opportunities in those areas were limited. So there they sat, trying to convince me that they were the right fit for a subject

for which they did not burn. I see the same with students. Each year I speak with students who tell me that they picked their intended major based on advice to choose one that entails earning large amounts of money. Usually they focus on Per-Med, Business, or some version of Pre-Law. Well-meaning influencers, often parents, provide this advice. Far too few advisers encourage students, university or high-school level, to pursue their passion.

     Any profession, and perhaps most especially teaching, requires passion. Passion for a subject elevates commitment. I regularly hear students moan that all their teachers fully believe that their subject is the most important and do not care about all the work other teachers assign. Inwardly I smile. Outwardly I just remind them that despite what other teachers may say, my subject (history or English) is actually the most important. Those kinds of comments from students encourage me. They tell me that I work in a building full of dedicated professionals. The administration has hired excellent teachers; ones that believe their forty-five or ninety minutes are the most important of the day. Passion for their subject oozes out of their lesson plans.

     Passion leads a teacher to go deeper into a subject than curriculum requires. This quest, and it is a life-long one, follows an often circuitous path. In our high-stakes-test-driven scholastic environment, we reduce any subject to the key ideas a student must know for future success. In some districts, standardized testing has driven standardized lesson plans, homogenizing classrooms, hamstringing teachers, and rendering classes anemic representations of core subject matter. Passion for a subject pushes back against the societal forces that would water down education. This same passion leads a teacher to spend time honing their pedagogic skills and their mastery of the subject. Mastery of the subject strengthens a teacher, enabling them to delve deeply into a subject when the moment presents itself.

     Often a student will ask a question, unrelated to the published lesson plan, opening the door to a fruitful unplanned discussion. These moments, these golden moments, elevate the classroom environment. The passionate teacher, one that burns to see others love the subject, leaps through those doors, dragging the often reluctant or recalcitrant students with them. This passion often ignites fires that burn for the rest of the student’s life. True teachers live for such moments.

     Passion carries us through those days when we gaze out over a sea of bored faces. Before teaching I imagined that every day would be like the movie, “Stand and Deliver.” You know the one, where a dedicated teacher inspires all his students to reach higher than they believed they could. There are those days, but there are many average days in between. Every subject has portions that you must slog through, dragging your students along. We do not reach all our students. Some just fail to see the importance of the subject. On those days, our passion keeps us going. Passion keeps us going when sorting through the seemingly endless sea of grading and other paperwork associated with our profession. It helps fortify us when plodding through the morass of administrivia and periodic problem students or parents.

     Passion keeps us going when facing the dreaded parent-teacher meeting. It helps us remember that the vast majority of parents want the best for their children; even when they seem to enable or excuse failure. It generates a wider or longer view, empowering us to set our own feelings aside and make decisions that support the success of the student. Navigating those troublesome moments takes diplomatic skills. Passion for the student as well as the subject helps. Parents often sense when you are passionately committed to their child as well as the subject and respond appropriately. Passion often fuels the effort to develop a new strategy for a particularly nettlesome situation.

     Passion fires the continual search for a better delivery method. A short stint in the classroom reveals the incredible complexity of education. What reaches one student utterly fails with another. Each class is different. They all develop their own personality. A lesson plan that succeeds in one class falls flat in the next. Passionate teachers never stop trying to improve their game, knowing that their efforts will help them reach more students. They plow through seemingly endless in-service activities, often trying very different things in their classrooms. They continue to grow as educators.

     Passion for your content area is critical. If you do not think your class time is the most important you will not understand the necessity to go bell-to-bell. You will end up trudging your way through your career, wondering why it never lived up to the billing. Teach what you love. Be passionate about your subject. Do not settle for something less. You will spend eight or more hours a day with your subject. If it does not truly fire your passions you, and your students, are in for long periods of drudgery. So, figure your passion and teach that.