If You Want to Be a Teacher...

Tomorrow is "Poem In Your Pocket" Day at our school! This is the poem I am putting in my pocket.  It is an excerpt from Random Thoughts: The Humanity of Teaching by Louis Schmier.  My favorite lines:
"If you want to be a teacher, you have to be inspired and inspire."
"If you want to be a teacher, you have to fall in love each day."

If You Want to Be a Teacher
By Louis Schmier
If you want to be a teacher, you first have to learn how to play hopscotch
And hide-and-seek,
Learn how to watch a snail crawl, blow bubbles,
Read Yertle the Turtle.

If you want to be a teacher, listen to a distant train,
Wiggle your toes in the mud and let it ooze through them,
Stomp in rain puddles,
And be humbled by the majesty of a mountain.

If you want to be a teacher, you have to be inspired and inspire.

If you want to be a teacher, you have to bring joy into everything,
Watch in awe a sunset or sunrise,
Ride on a swing,
And respect even a cockroach as a miracle of life.

If you want to be a teacher, you have to think silly thoughts,
Swirl a Tootsie Pop in your mouth.

If you want to be a teacher, you have to fall in love each day.

If you want to be a teacher, you have to put aside your formal theories,
Intellectual constructs, axioms, statistics, and charts,
When you reach out to touch that miracle called

The individual human being. 

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