After school, a former student stopped in for a visit. We were chatting about teaching as a job. He wanted to know how I could enjoy it so much. He agreed that it seemed like it could be a fun job at times, but was sure it was not worth all the "crap" I had to take from kids. My response came without permission from my brain…without a second of forethought. Like some kind of deeper wisdom I did not even know I understood: "Well, every time I do get crap from a student, I get another opportunity to practice being fabulous."And this is how it is. This is the greatest gift inside this challenge. Teaching teenagers forces one to increase their capacity to be kind, to not take things personally, to choose joy, to reframe insights and ideas, to take deep breaths, to be an example of a quality human being.
Ekhart Tolle light heartedly acknowledged in one of his books that if you ever wanted to see if you were truly enlightened, just spend some time with your family. I would argue the same is true for spending time teaching teenagers about where to place a comma.
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