Journal: 12/14/05

I’m afraid I lived a rather unexamined life yesterday. It was a good day – lots of rewarding things happened and I recall being very happy most of the day – but it was also a day of rather mindless, aimless living. I wasn’t really alert to the beautiful things unfolding each moment. I wasn’t aware, and therefore most of the thousands of miracles that happened slipped right past me unnoticed. In my teaching, for instance, I’m afraid I was a bit of a robot. I’m sure, if a supervisor had been in my classes, I might have received a decent grade for my teaching, but I would grade myself at the ‘C’ level because of my lack of awareness. I taught from instinct and memory, not from awareness. My ideas came to me quickly and I don’t think I examined more than a few of them. My actions in the classroom were similar to popcorn popping helter-skelter in a pan. I don’t mean to suggest that I hadn’t carefully planned my classes, because I had. It’s just that, once the classes started, I was off and running like a jackrabbit, bouncing here, there, and everywhere. In a sense, I didn’t guide my thoughts; they guided me. Today I hope to have a different experience. Today I want to step back a bit from my teaching and quietly examine what’s happening as I teach. I want to be an involved, active teacher, as usual, but I also want to be an observer. I want to teach with vigor, but at the same time I want to calmly and carefully watch as the miracles unfold in my classes.