A Teaching Life

Allison Brentwood’s metro-minibus metaphor appears to her one evening when preparing for a field trip. She recognizes its deeper meaning, one that will affect her teaching, inviting her to be receptive to her students, allowing them to inquire, to suggest, to take initiative on a journey open to the unexpected.

Like Allison, we have the choice in our lives whether to drive a ‘delivery’-yellow bus or choose the ‘engagement’ metro-minibus. For the yellow, we choose to let our life come and go; for the metro, we open to “forks and sidetracks.” One aims only to “reach its intended destination,” the other remains open to surprises along the way.

Living in an information-rich world, we can choose to let the information slide in and out, or we can choose what to pay attention to. Choosing the latter, we open to possibilities.

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You face conundrums every day. Public criticism, incursions, and interferences. Phone beeps seek your attention. It’s no wonder sometimes you feel pressure to ride the yellow bus just to get through the day. But your heart reminds you not to be an audience. Your life is yours. You choose how you live it.

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forward.” (Kierkegaard)

I write to bring ideas and methods from my life as a teacher in the latter half of the 20^th century to help teachers and the public to “live forward” in this century. My latest book, Teacher in the Rye: Doing It My Way is available on Amazon. And I welcome comments here on my Substack or by email at frankthoms3@gmail.com.