A Teaching Life

Florence Reed, on her own, founded Sustainable Harvest International in 1997 complete with a Board of Directors, three employees, and 50 participant families. Since 1997, she’s worked with over 3,000 families and planted more than 4 million trees while preventing the practice of slash and burn agriculture. One woman, one idea, extending into three Central American countries, Belize, Honduras, and Panama. Margaret Mead would have agreed that Florence indeed is changing the world.

When we toss a pebble into a pond, its ripples remind us of affecting change, often in small ways, unnoticed. We see a couple on the street in our city hovered over their phone and ask if they are lost. We go into the kitchen after a delicious meal to say thank you to the chefs. We wake up early to give our garbage collectors a tip. Each act changes the world for those individuals.

You may have chosen a profession wanting to make a difference, to help make the world better. Perhaps as a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, or conservationist. Or you may be a shop owner, plumber, carpenter, barista, bartender, chef, again wanting to make others’ lives better.

Those who commit to teach in public schools, under close scrutiny and threatening duress, understand the serious commitment they must make. They know, whether they pay attention to it or not, that they make a difference to their students every class, every day. And their students make a difference, too, often to their teacher. One may raise his hand and offer an insight into an idea she’d been struggling with. Another, who has challenged her for half the year, may say something kind.

Mead’s quotation invites us to be a part of “a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens [who] can change the world.” Do it for good.

Invite teachers you know to read my Blog, written with them in mind to provide hope in these troubled times.