The Invisible Teacher
I need a blog for random thoughts. This is it.
Today I'm substitute teaching again at Air Academy High School in Colorado Springs. Fine school, great kids. Mostly white, patriotic (duh - school's on the Air Force Academy property), smart, with Potential for Great Things. Which is not my point today.
Substitute teachers are invisible. We are only here for a period per class usually, so we are not really here. Not to the students. Not to the other teachers. The school secretaries like us and after awhile even remember our names.
But we are without dimension. We are point particles, all alike like electrons are all alike. Physicist Richard Feynman suggests that there is just one electron in the universe, and it's everywhere all at the same time.
There is just one substitute teacher, and we are everywhere all at the same time.
This moment in this class is a fine example. They watched a TED talk on procrastination, and now they are working on their own TED talks.
I sit and type, invisible. I took roll already. That's all I do. That, and keep them from burning the building down. As if.
Here's what they don't know. I'm a professional speaker. I've been speaking professionally off and on since 1979, mostly with high school kids. I've been a full-time professional speaker since 2002. I've given hundreds, maybe thousands of talks. I've given talks to students and teachers from over 260 schools in 42 countries, including, oddly enough, twice in this school, and in many of those schools, as here, multiple times over several years. One school, 18 consecutive years. Another, 15. I was the sole speaker at 56 conferences for multiple schools in 20 countries. They set the conferences up for me to be the speaker. I was the speaker at the same conference in Jakarta for 7 years, in Costa Rica for 5, for multiple years in Colorado, Birmingham, Penzance & Cheltenham England, Shanghai, Lima, Cyprus.
I've recorded my talks on DVDs as a film series twice, sell the DVDs globally. I have YouTubes posted, streaming audio on my website. I've given TV and radio interviews. I've written six books, three out of the talks. I sell the books, sign autographs. People stand in line to get their books signed. Sometimes. I've done lecture series on cruise ships. I've been in some of the finest, most expensive schools in the world, and in fine, very poor schools. I keynoted at Cambridge University at two conferences, spoke a third time at another.
I'm really good.
And I sit here, and type. Invisible.
I thought about telling them just that I'm a professional speaker, and offer my help if they might want some. But when I was brand-new to this temp job as a sub, I would tell students and teachers a little of my story.
No one cares.
This is not a sob story, a sub sob story. I'm not sad for myself. I spend a lot of time up front in front of large audiences. I don't need the attention or the glory.
I'm a teacher. I have something to offer them. But subs don't really exist. We're here and gone, not worth the relational time or effort. Subs have nothing to offer. They have no personal history, character, talent, experience that is of interest. But I can help in a way that many people cannot.
I am sympathetic, though. When I meet other subs, I don't care about them, either. I don't have time or energy for temporary relationships. I have the same attitude towards them that the students have towards me, towards all of us subs.
So it causes me to wonder what I miss, what you miss, what we all miss when we don't care. What richness, what gold to be mined, what knowledge and experience to be tapped.
When we look into a face, and say, there's nothing there that is worth the time, the effort, the energy.
What we seem to demand is context, some basis on which to make a judgement about whether to invite someone into our space.
My context is "substitute teacher". Even I am impeded by that context when I meet other subs. Subs are bookmarks, place-holders, the people you might pay to stand in line at a concert for you, Uber drivers, ballgame peanut vendors.
And out in the world, the same is true. I seldom get invited to speak at churches, because I don't move in church circles. They haven't read about me, haven't watched a podcast or seen me on Instagram or Snapchat. Their pastors haven't mentioned me, and I haven't written in (lately) or been written about in their magazines. I am not a topic of conversation. I don't have a mega-church to pastor, a large Christian organization to run. The Christian publishers won't publish my books because I don't fit into their paradigm.
The secular world is much the same. I'm not a professor, don't have a Ph.D. I don't have a science or a history blog (well, I do, but nobody reads them) or have a podcast channel. I'm not a scientist, though I speak on science topics, and since I dare to blend science and faith from a purely scientific perspective, neither people of science nor people of faith have any interest. My books are not learned or academic, and they're funny. Science doesn't do humor, and neither do people of faith. And the secular publishers won't publish my books because they don't fit into their paradigm.
Seems like we all, me included, like to have a box to fit people into before we will let them into our lives.
Class in almost over. I could have helped. But there you go. Even I'm not interested in hearing about me.
Random thoughts.
Today I'm substitute teaching again at Air Academy High School in Colorado Springs. Fine school, great kids. Mostly white, patriotic (duh - school's on the Air Force Academy property), smart, with Potential for Great Things. Which is not my point today.
Substitute teachers are invisible. We are only here for a period per class usually, so we are not really here. Not to the students. Not to the other teachers. The school secretaries like us and after awhile even remember our names.
But we are without dimension. We are point particles, all alike like electrons are all alike. Physicist Richard Feynman suggests that there is just one electron in the universe, and it's everywhere all at the same time.
There is just one substitute teacher, and we are everywhere all at the same time.
This moment in this class is a fine example. They watched a TED talk on procrastination, and now they are working on their own TED talks.
I sit and type, invisible. I took roll already. That's all I do. That, and keep them from burning the building down. As if.
Here's what they don't know. I'm a professional speaker. I've been speaking professionally off and on since 1979, mostly with high school kids. I've been a full-time professional speaker since 2002. I've given hundreds, maybe thousands of talks. I've given talks to students and teachers from over 260 schools in 42 countries, including, oddly enough, twice in this school, and in many of those schools, as here, multiple times over several years. One school, 18 consecutive years. Another, 15. I was the sole speaker at 56 conferences for multiple schools in 20 countries. They set the conferences up for me to be the speaker. I was the speaker at the same conference in Jakarta for 7 years, in Costa Rica for 5, for multiple years in Colorado, Birmingham, Penzance & Cheltenham England, Shanghai, Lima, Cyprus.
I've recorded my talks on DVDs as a film series twice, sell the DVDs globally. I have YouTubes posted, streaming audio on my website. I've given TV and radio interviews. I've written six books, three out of the talks. I sell the books, sign autographs. People stand in line to get their books signed. Sometimes. I've done lecture series on cruise ships. I've been in some of the finest, most expensive schools in the world, and in fine, very poor schools. I keynoted at Cambridge University at two conferences, spoke a third time at another.
I'm really good.
And I sit here, and type. Invisible.
I thought about telling them just that I'm a professional speaker, and offer my help if they might want some. But when I was brand-new to this temp job as a sub, I would tell students and teachers a little of my story.
No one cares.
This is not a sob story, a sub sob story. I'm not sad for myself. I spend a lot of time up front in front of large audiences. I don't need the attention or the glory.
I'm a teacher. I have something to offer them. But subs don't really exist. We're here and gone, not worth the relational time or effort. Subs have nothing to offer. They have no personal history, character, talent, experience that is of interest. But I can help in a way that many people cannot.
I am sympathetic, though. When I meet other subs, I don't care about them, either. I don't have time or energy for temporary relationships. I have the same attitude towards them that the students have towards me, towards all of us subs.
So it causes me to wonder what I miss, what you miss, what we all miss when we don't care. What richness, what gold to be mined, what knowledge and experience to be tapped.
When we look into a face, and say, there's nothing there that is worth the time, the effort, the energy.
What we seem to demand is context, some basis on which to make a judgement about whether to invite someone into our space.
My context is "substitute teacher". Even I am impeded by that context when I meet other subs. Subs are bookmarks, place-holders, the people you might pay to stand in line at a concert for you, Uber drivers, ballgame peanut vendors.
And out in the world, the same is true. I seldom get invited to speak at churches, because I don't move in church circles. They haven't read about me, haven't watched a podcast or seen me on Instagram or Snapchat. Their pastors haven't mentioned me, and I haven't written in (lately) or been written about in their magazines. I am not a topic of conversation. I don't have a mega-church to pastor, a large Christian organization to run. The Christian publishers won't publish my books because I don't fit into their paradigm.
The secular world is much the same. I'm not a professor, don't have a Ph.D. I don't have a science or a history blog (well, I do, but nobody reads them) or have a podcast channel. I'm not a scientist, though I speak on science topics, and since I dare to blend science and faith from a purely scientific perspective, neither people of science nor people of faith have any interest. My books are not learned or academic, and they're funny. Science doesn't do humor, and neither do people of faith. And the secular publishers won't publish my books because they don't fit into their paradigm.
Seems like we all, me included, like to have a box to fit people into before we will let them into our lives.
Class in almost over. I could have helped. But there you go. Even I'm not interested in hearing about me.
Random thoughts.
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