What drew me to education? I believed, and still do, I make a difference in the lives of young people entrusted to me for a year or more by their parents. It is a covenant. Yesterday, someone noticed a sticker on the classroom door. Someone had written: “Mr. P. is a good Math teacher.” A student asked if I was a good Math teacher and I responded, “No, I teach students, not subjects.” Virginia Satir described the contact teachers encourage children’s lives. We must never lose this aspect of relationship with other people, particularly children. The reciprocal nature of being is critical to humanity and humanness. The whole person emerges in the safety of these relationships.
I believe
The greatest gift
I can conceive of having from anyone
is
to be seen by them,
heard by them,
to be understood
and touched by them.
The greatest gift
I can give
is to see, hear, understand
and to touch
another person.
When this is done
I feel
contact has been made.
About ivonprefontaine
In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms.
I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders.
I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs.
I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry.
I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry.
I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope and its anticipatory relationship with the future, and hope as an essential element in learning.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
I agree. Seeing that you’re making a difference in someone’s life is the one thing that keeps me going through all the other nonsense and garbage that comes with teaching sometimes.
David, knowing what we do in life has meaning gives it worth. I stopped worrying about external affirmations some time ago. It comes to me through the contacts that I make after students and families moved on.
This must be echoing within every reader who teaches – it sure does for me. Ours is an amazing profession…
It certainly is.
what a noble profession and you seem to be highly honored. thank you for being a wonderful educator!! MY GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD!
Thank you Len.
🙂
Yes, I agree. I feel like that about teaching my junior choristers to sing.
It is so energizing when they succeed. You can see them rise to the occasion.
I wish all teachers had these insights! I still remember my math teacher from high school, she definitely taught a subject – so I became friends with math & statistics only much later in life. Great post!
Thank you Tiny. The best teachers I had were sometimes less knowledgeable about subject, but I wanted to be in their class. I learned more than just about the subject matter.
Beautiful and wise and eloquent….Thank you
Thank you and you are welcome.
I like you approach at putting the human being at the centre of the equation.
Parker Palmer, one of my heroes, says this is the central aspect of learning. It is all about relationships with one’s self, the other, and the disciplines.
That is so beautiful! You really are making a difference in those children’s lives and they on yours. A truly passionate teacher!
I hope so. Most days the important thing is to balance my passion with compassion.Thank you for the lovely comment.
I love Satir. Studied her in college. Wish more teachers of young people were like you, though my kids were so lucky to grow up with a great grammar/middle school combo with dedicated teachers such as yourself.
Thank you Bela. I was surprised to read her biography and find out she wrote poetry based on her work, psychotherapy. After a little reflection, I should not be surprised. What we love in life probably serves as the catalyst for our creativity.
I second that! My major was Jungian psych and creative writing. I think one who seeks to understand behaviors and thus their motivators (thoughts as well as emotions) might naturally gravitate to such creative expression, if they are the introspective sort 😉
That is a pretty interesting combination. I can see the value. Jung asked us to look inward, reflect, and from there emerges the creative.
Yes! They definitely fed one another. Lucky me!
You are very lucky.
I enjoy reading your blog, though on a lot of topics, I have a very different view. I taught for many years, and had many students I cared for… some of them I truly loved. But I never taught the student… just the subject.
Shimon, as I read your comment, I thought we probably are very much alike and are only expressing ourselves in different ways. You strike me as such a compassionate person that your students were blessed to have you at their side.
Beautiful and oh so true. “The whole person emerges in the safety of these relationships.” Wonderful!
Russ
Thank you Russ.