On Teaching: Discouragement and Selfishness

I grew discouraged about my teaching today, but, after thinking about it for awhile, I realized that my discouragement grew out of nothing other than simple selfishness. I was down on myself because “I” wasn’t performing as well as I thought I should. (Notice all the ‘I’s in that sentence.) My discouragement was all about me, not really about the kids. I was thinking a whole lot more about my own status as a teacher than I was about whether my students were learning anything. What I had to start reminding myself, again, was that there should be absolutely no selfishness involved in teaching. If I see teaching as being about a separate, isolated, physical self called “a teacher” organizing lessons and manipulating other separate, isolated, physical selves called “students”, then I simply don’t understand the nature of teaching. There’s no selfishness involved in real teaching because there are no separate selves involved. Teaching is all about the vast Universe (of which my students and I are a part) going about its timeless business of taking good care of itself. In order to be a good teacher, I don’t have to do anything “by myself”. I don’t have to sit alone and plan lessons and take the responsibility for educating my students “by myself”. That would sort of be like one finger on my hand deciding that it alone is responsible for keeping my body in working order. The Universe (sometimes called God, Allah, the Tao, etc.) does all the planning and teaching. All I have to do, tomorrow and every other day, is relax and let the universe do its wonderful work. There’s no possibility of discouragement setting in, because the universe never makes mistakes. Whatever it plans and whatever it teaches is just perfect.
And because I’m part of the universe, so am I.