For years, I have contemplated about writing a blog. I thought about blogging on cooking or crafting or writing because I enjoy all of those things, but when you get down to it, when you really get down to the nitty gritty of who I am and what I love, there is nothing in this world that I know more about than teaching. I don’t have it all figured out. I have a really hard time finding a balance between a job I love and my “life.” And, I make a lot of mistakes along the way, but I figure those mistakes are worth sharing if someone like you is interested in reading about them. I hope to also share with you some successes, some triumphs, and maybe some strategies that might help you. This blog is my New Year’s Resolution, and it’s my way of contributing to the greater good.

Just as Thoreau went to the woods to live deliberately, I, too, hope to use this blog in a deliberate fashion to catalogue some events from my pilgrimage as a teacher.

And now a word about teaching… It is a difficult task for our society to understand the concept of true service. Teaching public school is one career that really forces its subscribers into a lifetime of service and ministry. There is no doubt in my mind that teaching in the K-12 world is not for the weakly minded or spiritually deplete individual — that does not mean that those who have left the teaching profession or who never chose it at all are weakly minded or spiritually deplete — but let’s give some credit where it’s due — teaching is tough. It’s hard to remain passionate when year after year your efforts go unappreciated and your paycheck goes unchanged. You believe that education is the way to change the world, but you see so little change from your desk or behind your podium or on the sidelines of the sport you also coach or even at the club’s meeting that you also have to sponsor. Allow me to remind you of the power of one. You are one individual who has the power to influence many others, but if you can just impact one student a year, you will have mathematically impacted more lives on this planet than there are stars in the sky. If you can change one life a year for thirty years, and if you inspire each one of those individuals to positively influence just one other person, well, that’s sixty people you’ve really affected, and that’s some really low and bad math! Anyway, if you’re reading this blog because you’re a teacher, you should really be called a world development specialist. And if you’re reading this blog because you’re my friend and you just want to see what I think about all the time (or because I conned you into reading), I hope you find a job you love where you also have access to changing the world. Because I do.