Passion Quilt

Tagged by Dawn!
Lessons from the Tortoise: Meme: Passion Quilt
# Think about what you are passionate about teaching your students.
# Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
# Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
# Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.

Lots of images might work, but this one, taken by my friend, Donita, recently caught my eye. The title? Love.

Whether I'm teaching college students or my own children, I think love is the center of all my teaching. I teach because I love teaching. No matter how otherwise misanthropic I tend to be, I always fall in love with my students. The heart of my teaching is to learn what it is you love, pursue your love, do all you do with love and for love and in love. Love isn't always easy. Sometimes it requires hard work and sometimes it breaks your heart. But you will always learn something worth learning if you are working and striving and trying and risking failure out of love.

If you're a teacher, consider yourself tagged!

Comments

[Donita]

What a great post, Shannon. Well, it just so happens that the picture is my wonderful husband and daughter, but, that's beside the point. I can use this concept when thinking about life (since I am not a teacher, per se). I am passionate about love and life and teaching others how to love, whether it's children, significant other, family, friends, strangers. Thanks for the continued inspiration.

[mlg]

Good Morning.. I am not sure what the content of your big home school posting is, but I am wondering if it will mention what is going on out here in CA. The Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District in Los Angeles ruled on February 28 that parents had to be credentialed teachers to educate their own children.

I am baffled by this. I can completely understand the need for standards and maybe even testing of home schooled children, but I can't imagine anyone thinks this is a good idea!

I have not actually ever met a home schooled child that wasn't leaps and bounds ahead of her peers. As a matter of fact when I was in college I was hired by a group of parents who had formed their own school. I was studying bilingual education and they wanted a resource to teach Spanish to their kids, something none of the parents could do. I was a senior, but not yet credentialed. The crazy thing is that my 12 year old is learning Spanish from the 8th grade History teacher because she is the most qualified at the school. She is good, but not fluent and not credentialed in Spanish.