As a teacher I was trained to teach: national/state standards, formulate curriculum, apply to students’ abilites, instruct systematically and efficiently, plan, organize, research, and prepare them for the next grade. That’s all fine and good when you have robots as students who want nothing more than to succeed, do the work, listen and get As. If that’s all you had, then life would be boring, not to mention, very creepy. Can you imagine little beady eyes staring at you, hanging on every word, and being perfect and never thinking for themselves? Just doing EXACTLY what you tell them? Is that what teachers really want? It’s easy to get frustrated with them when you’re trying to get something done and they have something else on their minds. Don’t we all? I do the same thing in staff meetings sometimes…an event during the day is still lingering in my mind and I can’t focus on our current discussion. It happens to kids too. We can’t cater to them, that’s not my point. But, what if we built into the day a fun, engaging activity that uses creativity and maybe teamwork that has nothing to do with the lessons for the day. Just for fun! Let’s stop, take a breath and realize that we can’t take life too seriously or you’ll die of a coronary or a 1,000 ulcers! It’s those moments when you get to connect on a personal level and see a child when they let their guard down. They have emotions and desires and dreams just like the teachers. Some of my favorite teaching moments were those times because topics come up that we get to discuss that wouldn’t normally in class. The kids see you as person too and want to develop a relationship with you which then carries into the instructional time. Take the time with your students (and own children) to let loose and try something different. The results will always be worth it. (you might even smile a bit…) 🙂