Living with Purpose

My department has nominated me for a really cool teaching award. There will only be fifteen winners across colleges in the great state of Texas, so I don't think I have a chance of winning, but being nominated shows they think I'm doing a good job of teaching - and that really means a lot to me. I have to complete the nomination forms, and the writing is extensive. One part asked for evidence of my teaching philosophy. Being a huge supporter of recycling, I went through old computer files and found the teaching philosophy statement I had to write for umpteen thousand applications several years ago. I used parts of that and added some new things.

Next, mail came to the office. The stack contained a letter of recommendation I had asked an esteemed colleague to write as five letters are required. I read the letter...and I cried. You see, the VERY THINGS she mentioned I was doing in the letter were EXACTLY the things I had written years ago in my teaching philosophy statement. It's coming full circle as I prayed it would -- what I wanted to accomplish, and what is being accomplished. She never knew what I wrote - only what I was doing.

My statement - then and now - began with this: "The future is not some place we are going but one that we are creating. The paths to it are not found but made and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination."~John Schaar.

I could not be more thankful.