Passion is defined as any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling -- as love or hate. So often, passion is connected to love or intimate desires. But, the passion to which I am referring is a strong, parallel essential to your well-being and identity. It's a strong and enthusiastic desire for anything -- like a passion for music. Parallel is having the same direction, course, nature, or tendency -- corresponding, similar or analogous. In geometry, parallel lines, equidistance apart, go on into infinity, never meeting. Hmmmm . . . .
On Tuesday and Wednesday last week, I had the privilege of going back to the classroom. (A colleague who is working on her teaching license is teaching {voluntarily} Financial Literacy at the alternative school took some time off. Once her teaching license is completed, she plans to get an administrative endorsement but teaching comes first). At any rate, it was fun going back into the classroom -- I don't get there too often. The students in the class were pretty much sitting in their seats, putting in the time, doing as little as possible to pass the class so that another box on the graduation credit sheet could be checked off. I challenged the students to look beyond the requirement for graduation to see if there wasn't something pushing them along -- a passion for something parallel to their school stuff (sitting in class, mainly). Needless to say they didn't get my point, and collectively explained that school was for their parents, for college, because they had to go, and so on. How sad!
What's your parallel passion? Yes, I go to work everyday, but what motivates me to get there and to do my best? Is it my family? Is it that each day presents something new and exciting -- a new student who needs help, a new problem to solve, a new idea ponder? Is it the association with great professionals? Is it the music/news I listen to on the radio? Is it the red/orange/yellow glow of the mountains in the early morning sun? Is it the success I see each of my family members achieving? Is it my faith? It's not one, two, or three parallel passions, I have too many to list. I know that it's a passion for something that energizes and transitions people from one day to the next -- I hope my parallel passions continue to accumulate.
On Tuesday and Wednesday last week, I had the privilege of going back to the classroom. (A colleague who is working on her teaching license is teaching {voluntarily} Financial Literacy at the alternative school took some time off. Once her teaching license is completed, she plans to get an administrative endorsement but teaching comes first). At any rate, it was fun going back into the classroom -- I don't get there too often. The students in the class were pretty much sitting in their seats, putting in the time, doing as little as possible to pass the class so that another box on the graduation credit sheet could be checked off. I challenged the students to look beyond the requirement for graduation to see if there wasn't something pushing them along -- a passion for something parallel to their school stuff (sitting in class, mainly). Needless to say they didn't get my point, and collectively explained that school was for their parents, for college, because they had to go, and so on. How sad!
What's your parallel passion? Yes, I go to work everyday, but what motivates me to get there and to do my best? Is it my family? Is it that each day presents something new and exciting -- a new student who needs help, a new problem to solve, a new idea ponder? Is it the association with great professionals? Is it the music/news I listen to on the radio? Is it the red/orange/yellow glow of the mountains in the early morning sun? Is it the success I see each of my family members achieving? Is it my faith? It's not one, two, or three parallel passions, I have too many to list. I know that it's a passion for something that energizes and transitions people from one day to the next -- I hope my parallel passions continue to accumulate.
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