Apple Influence

Dear Teacher,

Good Saturday morning!

Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday, it was quite a busy day.  If I find the time, I might do two posts today.  For now it will just be a quick one.  A friend of mine share this quote with me.  He is a “teacher” at our school (he is not a teacher-teacher, but he is a teacher, he runs our ISS), and he is really good at working with our most difficult cases.  This has stuck with me ever since he said it do me.

I looked it up and there are conflicting sources as having said this, but the top two are Robert Schuller and Karen Jensen.  They both have a nice ring to them, and Jensen focuses on teaching, so I am going to share both.

Any fool can count the seeds in an apple. Only God can count all the apples in one seed. -Shuller

You can count the seeds in an apple, but you can’t count the apples in a seed.  When you teach, you will never know how many lives you will influence…you are teaching for eternity. -Jensen

I share this quotes and this poster because we need to focus on the big picture.  This week I talked a lot about our need as teachers to change (Wednesday and Thursday), and I will continue to talk about it for the next couple of weeks…can you tell the workshop I went to had a big effect on my thinking?  We do need to take a look in the mirror and see where we can change to make a bigger impact on students and our learning.  I think the idea of never knowing how many lives the live you influence will go on to influence.  It puts it all into perspective.

It is time for us to get out of our comfort zones.  Another Jensen, Eric Jensen (who put on the training I went to) said something that stuck with all of us there:

Is maintaining you comfort level more important than our kids graduating?

Read that again and let it sink in.  Is being in a teaching “grove” and being good enough worth any student not graduating if you could have affected this at some point for the better?  This should speak to you no matter what kind of school you teach at or the grade level you teach?  Can you stand up and say, like Jaime Escalante said at t staff meeting, “I’m not [doing enough].  I could teach more.”  Escalante is the teacher that the movie Stand and Deliver was about and the center of my first Teacher Rockstar post series I hope begin next week.

We can all do more.  It is probably not “doing more” for most teachers, especially you.  You, and others, already do so much.  It is more about doing what you do more effectively and with a new focus.  I think the quote about seeds and apples is a great place to start to thinking about what our focus is.  How can we grow the most apples from each seed that go on to grow more apples from more seeds?

You are so awesome!  I know that some of this is hitting home, because the post It’s Not Me, It’s YOU has been the most viewed post here…hitting 800 in three days…and still going up.  I am going to keep hitting this them, but I am also going to give you so help, ideas, and models that will help us all go out there and grow as many apples as we can…and we will never know the final tally!  You ARE making a differences and influencing those seeds!  Keep growing and keep teaching, Teacher!

Love, Teacher

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