The Trail of Inspiration, Part 1
When a teacher first starts out, they often see themselves as kind of glorified dispensers of facts.
You have to make sure you cover Columbus (and all the contrarian theories about how he didn’t discover America) by Columbus Day. You must work in the Pilgrims by Thanksgiving. As author Laurie Halse Anderson notes in her novel Speak, teachers would probably do a better job progressing all the way to the end of the history book if there were just more holidays to keep them on track.
Teaching IS about the data.
But the longer I teach, the more I realize that my job is just as much about teaching students WHY they should learn and HOW to learn, as it is about presenting data to them.
That means not just presenting information, but coaching students on how to draw inspiration from it. Searching for and responding to inspiration may not be a skill the states require us to teach, but it’s a skill that can mean the difference between a life of emptiness and apathy or a life of vitality and growth.
This week we’re talking about Pre-History and early civilizations. Cue the bored stares, right? You don’t even want to read a blog about it, right?
But as we talk about how civilization developed, there are principles in there that still hold true today.
The value of community: Early people decided the best idea was to live together. If everyone stuck together, they could split up the tasks necessary for survival and fend off wild animals or attackers more easily.
The value of planning ahead: The best civilizations arose from thoughtful planning. People learned, for example, that it was best to settle down near a river or other source of water. In addition to the fishing, animals came here to drink, which provided good hunting. There was also the added bonus of the water creating fertile soil. Rivers also promoted easier travel and trade with nearby communities. And bathing or washing things got a lot easier too.
The value of the generation before you: Each generation built on the strengths of the one before them. One generation figured out how to divide up the labor force, creating specialists who did things like hunt. Then all these groups worked together collaboratively to make sure everything got done by people with training and expertise to do them. With this system in play, the next generation had a hand up. They could worry less about day to day survival and more about building permanent structures that improved their quality of life.
The value of being willing to try new things: Some people had to be the “discoverers” of farming. They probably circled up people in the village and explained their observations that seed would grow into plants. Amazing!! Maybe they pitched the possibility that certain animals could be confined and raised and bred to keep meat, eggs and milk coming into the village. Had no one in these early civilizations been willing to listen, had they dismissed the idea of farming as ridiculous, though, the town’s energy would’ve continued to pour into moving from place to place–setting up and tearing down temporary settlements–as they chased game and wild fruit/nuts. Thankfully, though, someone somewhere was willing to move on a new idea. And as a result, they developed a reliable food supply that allowed them to build towns and stay a while.
I know not everyone’s job comes with such clean start and stop points as teaching. So maybe there is no 3rd quarter for you to evaluate and tweak your own idea models or to assess your use of time. But I think it would do the world a service if all of us would just stop every once in a while and remember why we’re doing the things we do. It would be great if, somewhere in our daily rhythms, we had little check-points to make sure that we’re not just transmitting data or checking off task lists, but that we’re following the trail of inspiration.