Learning Lessons (eBook)

How One Teacher Found Her Way Back to the True Heart of Teaching

Linda Markley (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
282 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-5328-2 (ISBN)

We all have been lost in our lives at one time or another. We stumble, we fall and we lose our way. So how do we get back up, try again and find our path on our lifelong learning journey? After a 35-year career, high school Spanish teacher Linda grew so disillusioned with the education system that she chose to leave her beloved profession. Reckoning with a fractured sense of self in the wake of this upheaval, she decided to walk nearly 200 miles across Spain on the ancient pilgrim's path of the Camino de Santiago. Join Linda on the trail as she follows the Camino's iconic yellow arrows to her destination and faces obstacles both external and internal: blisters, antagonists, the fear of failure and being lost. With each step, Linda must rediscover what it really means to 'learn lessons' and rekindle the guiding light within her: the passion, purpose, and spirit that defined her as an educator.

Linda Markley has been both a student and a teacher her whole (hearted) life! She has taught Spanish, French, Math, Languages for Specific Purposes and ESL to every age group, in private and public schools, in both under-served and privileged communities. Linda has also served on various educational committees as well as on the boards of many national, state and local professional organizations. She has won numerous awards for teaching and for her advocacy work in education. After retiring from the education system disillusioned and ailing, Linda authored the book Learning Lessons about her journey back to herself as she walked nearly 200 miles across Spain on the Camino Francés pilgrim's trail. Learning Lessons is dedicated to anyone - teachers, students, and everyone in between - who may need a hand to hold as they make their way forward on their path in life. Today, Linda channels her passion for teachers and students through The Spirit of Teaching, which she founded in 2020. She shares inspiration, support, resources, and a weekly newsletter, as well as a podcast called Teacher Tales, with the purpose of creating an archive of teacher stories that inform, enlighten, inspire and uplift. You can find out more about Linda and the Spirit of Teaching at www.spiritofteaching.org

DATA, GRADES AND CHECKLISTS

“Let it go.”

— FROZEN

AFFIRMATION:

I am enough.

As I was called to the counter of the next worker at the Pilgrim’s Office in Santiago de Compostela, I felt a flutter of butterflies swirling around in my stomach as if I were stepping out on a stage to give a presentation. I never really have felt nervous being in front of a crowd of people doing a presentation. It is what teachers do every day I suppose. It wasn’t the achy feeling I had been having for the past three days since my “illness.” Instead, it was a feeling of tickling in my tummy like a bunch of butterflies being released and set free. No longer a chrysalis. No more “bug juice,” as Sue Monk Kidd calls it. A metamorphosis had taken place, and a newfound freedom of my soul had emerged.

There was a long line and plenty of time to reflect before it was my turn, not that I hadn’t been doing that for the past month while I walked halfway across Spain! How had I gotten here, figuratively speaking? What had led me to travel to a different continent to walk 15-20 miles per day on an ancient religious path called the Camino Francés? Like most of the peregrinos (pilgrims), I was seeking answers to life’s big questions: Who am I? and What is my purpose? We are born into this world, are given a name and sent along a path of learning and self-discovery. We go to school and are shown all the “right” answers to all the “right” questions. We are conditioned to believe that life is like school and that we should always have the right answers. But what if we don’t? What if somehow along the way, we get off path, and we are lost? What if we allow things outside of ourselves to define who we are and set our path instead? What will happen if we don’t have all the “right” answers and we are frozen in fear to make a choice because we are afraid of being wrong, or that we will be shamed, or made fun of, or that we will fall short as the end results are not enough? Or rather… we are not enough?

So, as I stood in line waiting to be called to my final exam, my summative assessment of the Camino, I found myself using all my background knowledge and personal experiences as a context in which to make meaning of such a “simple” inquiry. There were only three short questions they were going to ask me at the Pilgrim’s Office.

Question 1.

“What is your name?” Well, that’s easy… Or was it? “What’s in a name?” said Shakespeare. Other languages, such as Romance languages like French and Spanish, express this as “what do you call yourself?” Here we can substitute many labels for name-calling, and with all with judgment behind them. We can substitute titles like Mr., Mrs., Miss, Director, or Doctor, and feel empowered and better than others, or smaller and disempowered by others. A seemingly simple question like this now had such a deeper meaning than it had before I started the Camino.

Question 2.

“Where are you from?” This question begs the exploration of so many beliefs, from those about our family origin, to our DNA origin, to our origin from the Divine and how we fit in to the bigger picture of humanity. We like to add details, sometimes stereotypes, to build context and connection. Like with our name, we identify greatly with our origin and the culture associated with that place. I’m from Green Bay, and I’m a Packers fan. I’m from the country and love having a lot of land and few neighbors. I’m from up North, down South, out West… My family is Italian, and we are really loud and boisterous. My family is originally from England and came over shortly after the Mayflower. There are so many labels to choose from.

“Well, this is easy so far,” I thought. What an easy “test!” I expected something much more profound and personal. The first two questions, I couldn’t get wrong. There was only one right answer for each one, right? And the third one was technically multiple choice, so I had a 50/50 chance of getting it “right,” right? But that was totally not true.

Question 3.

“What was your purpose for doing the Camino…spiritual or religious?” I had so many answers now and very few questions! My soul was once again intact. I had learned so much, and my journey on the Camino had changed me forever. Did they not want to know anything about that? Each pilgrim has a different, unique and interesting story. Aren’t they curious to hear about everyone’s learning journey? Their questions and approach were hitting someplace deep inside me.

Why would they make such a profound, meaningful question multiple choice with only two possibilities? Moreover, if each pilgrim’s experience and purpose could be narrowed down and put into two boxes, why didn’t they at least then give the pilgrim an opportunity to explain? I understand that time is an issue, but weren’t they interested in finding out just a little about each person’s journey? In three words, three sentences, three minutes? Just something that would initiate reflection and solidify the learning journey that had taken place. I had learned and grown so much more than what could ever be reflected in my three short answers.

•••

As a language teacher, I’ve learned and taught a lot about communication. I know that there are actually three modes of communication. It starts with the interpretive mode, where we are given oral or visual input that we interpret according to our background knowledge, experiences, and emotions. It can be very personal. It is also what I call the “power mode.” This is the mode where our learning journey begins. How we interpret the world outside of us begins with the world we know is inside of us. It is the catalyst and the context for the other modes of communication that we use. The second mode is the interpersonal mode, in which we share this information with others, having interpreted and run it through our personal filter. Finally, there’s the mode of communication we use least often, and yet is the most commonly used in the classroom: the presentational mode, which is a oneway communication of information via oral or written “report.” It is also the mode most used by the teacher, sometimes known as “sit and get” or “sage on the stage.”

Because I was a language teacher, I had asked these same questions of my students, but I gave them multiple prompts and paths to expand and personalize their answers. Asking these questions wasn’t an assessment; it was about communication — forging connections to build relationships with others and ourselves. The questions were meant for reflection and to help the child find his or her place in the world.

These three somewhat simple questions ultimately triggered a deeper frustration in me about what teaching had come to be. They reminded me of the ineffective and harmful ways we evaluate learning in school. Learning must be quantifiable and easy to put in a spreadsheet, to create statistics and data. In this age of computers and information exchange, communication has been reduced to a graphic, emoji, text-speak, selfie or data that can be easily given and then “digested.” Bite-sized chunks. Easily shared via computers on the internet and through social media.

I know that this is the same frustration that teachers, students and parents are going through today with standardized testing and the prescribed paths to get there. There is so much more to life than that! Life doesn’t come down to a test, we tell ourselves and our children, YET, we are not living this truth. Teachers and students are reduced to numbers. Learning experiences homogenized, pasteurized, and squeezed into a box for convenient consumption and control. Where is the meaning? What does it have to do with me, my life, and the real world? These are common questions that echo through the hallways in schools. If we are not curious and don’t look inside to find the deeper meaning to our experiences and journey in life, then there is no awareness, learning, growth or perceived purpose to our path.

Yes, life is full of choices, multiple ones. Sometimes it is a 50/50 chance of being right, but we never know until more questions come up and we find ourselves with more choices to make. And more often than not, there are no right or wrong answers to the questions that do come up. We just have our perceptions, actions, and the lesson we are meant to learn from them that will lead us to the next step… and the next and the next. Life is about reflection and figuring out the next step. It is about a growth mindset of “not yet,” but even more, it is about evolution and being and doing a little bit better today than we did yesterday or the day before or the day before that. So, put down the red pen and stop marking up your life with checkmarks, Xs and boxes. Instead, go inside and open your heart to the endless possibilities for your journey and your path in life. That is where true...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	3.4.2024
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Lebenshilfe / Lebensführung
ISBN-13	979-8-3509-5328-2 / 9798350953282

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