blessing

Find your blessings and then leverage them!

/ antonioyrocinante / 2 Comments

Yes, I live in a sort of self-imposed exile. No, I do not live in political exile like some of my friends. I do not live in economic or some other sort of exile; mine is occupational. I cannot do the work I do here at home. On top of that, it is no secret that for me, South Florida has very few redeeming qualities. So I could live a bitter and resentful life. However, I try to find the positive and leverage it.

One of the many blessings I enjoy every day is walking from my office, across campus to the refectory, where I make myself a coffee with steamed milk in a professional espresso machine (and grab a cookie to dunk). We have a 73-acre campus which used to be an emergency landing strip for WWII pilots learning to fly out of what is now Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

About in the middle of our campus is a lake with a fountain, plenty of fish, and a wonderful path around it! So every morning I walk along the lake, and it is beautiful! Every day is different, cloudy, bright, rainy (this is Florida after all). There are all sorts of wildlife: birds, squirrels, and, if you are lucky, turtles!!

That walk is my first meditation of the day; it is a walk of thanksgiving, of gratitude, of joy, it is splendid!

So, while I could be doing that walk moaning and complaining that I am not home, I choose to enjoy that walk and thank God. I invite you to find your blessings and leverage them. You are welcome.

Lake collage

Celebrating 20 years of teaching – some takeaways

/ antonioyrocinante / 2 Comments

This year marks my 20th year of teaching. It has been a total blessing. I have talked a lot about it here, but there should be at least some celebratory comments.

The first observation is that teaching is a vocational endeavor; if your heart is not in it, you will struggle and not be the best teacher for your students. I have taught almost 50/50 in secondary and university settings with brief stints in Middle school, and even primary school! (Read about it here.) My observation is that most teachers do it because they love it —we don’t do it for money. If you do not know if teaching is for you, try it out!

I have said this ad nauseam: all teaching is relational. We learn from a place of trust, that trust comes from the teacher-student relationship and that relationship comes from the teacher being open, better yet, vulnerable (within boundaries, of course), and honest.

Just because students are not masters of the subject matter does not make them stupid; they can see right through the teacher if you do not know the subject matter, regardless of your teaching style. So know and prepare your material, and if they ask something you do not know, get back to them with an answer. This recently happened to me, no shame in it.

Something that always motivates me is thinking of who I consider to be the best two teachers in history: Socrates and Jesus. They did not have hi-tech classrooms, which makes me always ask myself: Could I teach this with just a stick in the sand? If the answer is no, then I must rethink my lesson plan. Everything else on top of that is glitter and show…

I could probably write a book about this, but for now, I hope you liked this blog post.

So while not every moment of my 20-year teaching career has been easy, I am looking forward to the next 20, let’s go!!