We are Here to Share

Yesterday morning I walked into my classroom greeting my new roomate. He's a veteran teacher with many years in and so much more accomplished. It would be a task not possible this early in the morning to describe and sum his accomplishments nice and neat for you to read. Let me just say that he lifts me up every mroning with a hearty greeting, good trivia, and great conversation.

But yesterday morning I wasn't greeted in the same way.

As I crossed the threshold of my room and slathered him with a quote from The Hulk, I heard a dim response followed by a series of complaints about his laptop. Apparently, he really needed something from his laptop before school and he had reached his frustration limit trying to access it. While this is not a new problem at our school, it was a new situation for me to see someone presently struggling with a technological challenge that wasn't very complicated. He was very upset and it was rubbing off.

I asked him to pause.

I walked over to my iGroove and found my Hillsong playlist. I then asked him to sit down and listen to the words. As the music played I asked him to reflect on his past life as a teacher and recall all of those moments that he didn't have a computer and didn't need one to do his job. I reminded him that his job was not defined by what is inside his computer, but WAS defined by what was inside his mind and, more importantly, his heart. That we are here to share ourselves and what we know and if a computer can help us do that...super!

But if not, we are more than able to serve our students for either way we are simply here to share. Share wisdom, share knowledge, share laughs, and share love. I share this with you now so that in your trying times which Web 2.0 may have, and if not, will surely bring, you can remember what is important about what we do as educators. It never, truly, has to be more complicated.

So as I talked I told him that today would be a day where the computers get stashed and we rely on the simple tools God gave us to teach. We were born with all the tools we need to reach our students. I walked over and closed his laptop and unplugged it's lifeforces...I then did the same with mine. He looked at me a bit in awe and a bit with gratitude and alot with a look that seemed to contemplate my sanity. But it was good.

Luckily the IT guy for our building came over about 15 minutes later and was able to fix his laptop. But mine was fixed and working well in my desk drawer...where it stayed until this morning and I had one of the best teaching days of my career. Thanks Davy!