Now what was it?

I'm trying to remember but I was going to write today. It's funny how sometimes you have a a - ha moment but then you forget what you recalled which dawned on you. Walking around a vast body of water, talking in dialogue with my cohort I feel a sense of continuity in my experience. That some where some how we have our prior knowledge and experiences that have brought us to this point. Some are married, working, about to be married, are in relationships, have children, made career switches. And its all for the same purpose, the same goal of becoming a teacher. It's funny, I look back at how I wanted to be a teacher in my undergrad years. I remember reading Jonathan Kozol's "Ordinary Resurrections" and Mike Roses " Lives on the Boundaries" and it made me see the educator not one who simply teaches and receives tenure after a few years. But I saw such hope and vision that the future could be better, that we, in the present may not know or see how our pupils turn out or how our instruction may lead or guide them.

However, its in the day to day, the relationships and conversations in the classroom with our students that we the teacher create the culture, make change happen in ways that we ourselves never thought possible.

Perhaps this is what Rafe Esquith said when he referred to "teaching like your hair's on fire" or when Robin Williams urged his pupils to constantly "seize the day."

each time I think about what made me want to become a teacher, I go back into my memories of who I was. I still have a letter from sixth grade teacher who could have given up on me due to my behavior problems. But nonetheless she persisted. She taught us in ways that led us to believe that we were not just sixth graders, but young adults maturing and eager for life's next steps.

I think back to those teachers who had such intensity that it was attributed as a sign of respect or a sign of some way of adding to their eccentricity.

Well, i've digressed immensely and i didn't even remember what I was supposed to journal about.

Now what was it?