Week 1

"Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.  I will praise you, O LORD my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever.  For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths of the grave." (Psalm 86:11-13)

     An undivided heart is completely focused on just one thing, that every fiber of its being is in-tune with it. The psalmist above is seeking a heart that is focused on God, that every thought and action be of him and for him.
     But what does this mean for a teacher? Palmer in Chapter 1 of The Courage to Teach talks about how some teachers, through many years of teaching fatigue, start developing a wall which separates them from their students. They no longer want to spend the energy required to connect with their students, but rather rely on their content knowledge to let them just get through the material. He uses the image of a cartoon speech bubble as a way of showing how lifeless this method of teaching can be.
     Teaching, at least good and effective teaching, needs to come from an undivided heart. Just as the psalmist sought to have their entire being be focused on God, teachers have to also be focused on their teaching everyday. Students need to get more than the day's content knowledge, but rather they need to be stoked into a burning passion for learning, just as the teacher is passionate for them to learn it. This is not easy be any means, but this is what teacher are called to do. In other professions it is okay to be "off your game" a day or two a week. When I had an office job I remember many days in which I wasn't too productive, but this didn't hurt the company's bottom line too much (I was much too unimportant to have any affect on it either way). But every day that I blow off as a teacher is a day in which my students lose a valuable day of learning. What teachers do in the classroom has a profound affect on their students' lives, therefore they can't simply "phone it in".
     This is what makes teaching the most difficult, yet rewarding profession.