Part of the joy of being a teacher is being a student. The children we encounter as teachers year after year in our classrooms provide us with many valuable lessons that we carry with us throughout our professional careers and our lives. We can (and often do) learn something new from children every day.
An important lesson I have learned from children is to enjoy life and not take the "little things" (or the big things, for that matter) too seriously. Children remind me to have fun, set aside time for "play" in my busy work and school schedule, and to laugh constantly. The near-instantaneous turnaround children have is remarkable - one minute they are crying about a scraped knee or not being allowed a turn with a favorite toy, and the next minute they are smiling from ear to ear and living in the moment. Children don't hold grudges nor do they let life get them down.
Another critical lesson I have been fortunate enough to receive from children early in my career is to always be yourself. No pretense required. As evidenced in "Walking Trees", children admire you because you are their teacher, which automatically makes you their hero, as well. The children in Thelma Perry's class hound Ralph for his autograph for reasons far deeper than his status as a writer (72). The children want Ralph's autograph because he is a hero, a teacher who has made a direct, long-lasting impact on their lives.
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Your post is so true, it reminds me of the quote I loved in Ralph Fletcher's Walking Tree, "You can tell worlds about a class by how much they laugh, really laugh...and pick out their teacher by the quality of their laughter." You stressed how much you laugh and admire that. I hope that you bring that into your classroom because it is so important. Too many teachers today seem to not be able to make learning fun and shun laughter.
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