As I'm sure you've already noticed, I am already way behind on my posts!  The end of the year has caused my ship to founder momentarily, but I'm not giving up!  I will do my best to have the chapter two post online by June 10th. 

Welcome to the first week of our book study!  I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Teach Like a Pirate.  I definitely had a few "stop and think" moments!  

The focus this week is on finding our passion.  I always felt like I knew what my passion was, but trying to put it into words proved a little more challenging than I expected.

Mr. Burgess breaks passion down into three categories: content, professional, and personal.  I especially liked these two quotes:

"Teaching is a job filled with frustrations, trials, and tests of your patience.  Use your passion to soar over obstacles instead of crashing into them and burning out."

Isn't that true?!  I think it's more evident at this time of year than at any other.  We feel worn down and beat up and just overall discouraged.  It's so easy to question the sanity of continuing to punish yourself day in and day out when things never seem to change.  And every time our email dings it's something more to add to our never-ending To Do List.  We lose sight of our passion in the everyday jumble of requirements and deadlines.  But when I step back and look at WHY I am doing what I do instead of WHAT I have to do, things change!

"With a focus on professional passion, teaching is no longer about relaying the content standard... it's about transforming lives.  It's about killing apathy.  It's about helping the next generation fulfill their potential and become sucessful human beings.  It's no longer about memorizing facts; it's about inspiring greatness."

I don't know about you, but that pretty much sums up why I got into this whole teaching thing to begin with!  Transforming lives and inspiring greatness.  Does it get any better than that?  If I can keep sight of that truth, it will totally change the climate of my classroom!  

So, now it's your turn.  What did you get out of this chapter?  Share your passions with us.  Maybe putting them into words will help you stay focused the next time that week full of Mondays sneaks up on you!