Teaching Like a Lake

A simple approach to lessening my stress in a day’s worth of teaching would be to be less me-centered and, I might say, more universe-centered. This would automatically make my life in the classroom less rigid and self-protective, and much gentler and softer. Problems arise and grow strong only when I’m thinking of a separate, frail, and therefore vulnerable teacher – me – as the center of everything. From that perspective, my primary focus in the classroom has to be to remain solid, durable, and dead-set against any harm coming to this separate person called Mr. Salsich. It makes each day a wearing and somewhat constant exertion. However, if I shift my perspective and see my teaching world in an entirely new way, as a kind of barrier-free oneness, a classroom uni-verse in the true sense, suddenly everything softens and calms down. If there are really no boundaries between separate “things” and “persons”, and therefore no one to protect or be protected from, then teaching teenagers, all of a sudden, can be seen as an easygoing and fairly risk-free process. It enables me to loosen my grip, relax my muscles, and effortlessly give way to every experience, like a lake gives way to whatever falls into it.