Heart-Centered Teaching

08/16/2012

Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.
Chinese Proverb

It would be hard to trust gardening advice from someone whose own garden was an overgrown weed patch," observes Nancy Rosenow in the opening of the newest book in the Exchange Store, Heart-Centered Teaching Inspired by Nature. Rosenow continues...

"I suspect it's also hard for children to believe that learning is exciting and worthwhile unless the adults in their lives actually value and enjoy learning themselves. Years ago, studying to be an educator, I had no idea that the most impressive lessons I'd be delivering would come from the way I lived my own life. But that turned out to be the case. Children know authenticity when they see it, and they know pretense. They undoubtedly saw some of both in me.

"Over the years I've come to believe that those of us who work with or for children have a responsibility to nurture themselves as tenderly as we nurture the children in our care. Children deserve to be taught by people who delight in the wonders of the world and are eager to share them. Children deserve to be taught by people who teach through positive example.

"Consider: How can we help children see the world is a place of goodness and unlimited possibilities if we experience it as dreary and stifling? How can children trust our advice about the benefits of healthy eating and exercise if we don't choose to practice what we preach? How will we help children learn the difficult art of conflict resolution if bitter conflicts in our own relationships remain unresolved? How can we help children discover nature's gifts of joy and wonder if we rarely delight in those gifts ourselves? And perhaps the hardest question of all: How will we help children experience themselves as unconditionally loved and loving beings if we don't feel unconditionally loving toward ourselves?"

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