So, I’ve been in a bit of blog-slump lately and haven’t kept up very well on my writing.  I’m still mulling around in my head exactly how I want to finish out my series of posts on education without turning it into something unwieldy and even more uninteresting than it already may be. 

So, in lieu of a more substantive epistle, I offer you this–a quote from Margery Williams’ The Velveteen Rabbit that has hung in every classroom I’ve ever had.  It pretty much sums up my beliefs about a life dedicated to real teaching.  When I started out, my only goal was to become a REAL teacher, and over my career as a teacher and a student, I have been blessed by the guidance of a host of REAL teachers who shaped my life in wonderful ways. 

What is REAL?” asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day… “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When [someone] loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.
“Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand… once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

― Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit