On Kindness and Strength

"I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." - Etienne (Stephen) De Grellet

I'm not quite sure why certain status updates stop and command my attention to the point of posting a response; there are likely a number of reasons. I'd imagine it depends on my state of mind, if there's an individual I've been thinking about of late, or if something someone writes strikes me as particularly funny, touching or thought-provoking.

As I recently did my usual obsessive check of the Facebook News Feed, I read the following post: "Why do people mistake kindness for weakness." The person who posted it is someone who I knew on a professional level, for a relatively brief period of time a few years back. She was one of those people, however, with whom I "clicked," to borrow a cliche. From time to time I've met those who, despite how long or how deeply I know them, just feel like they're cut from the same cloth as I am, in terms of how they look at the world around them.

In other words, I sort of see myself in this person.

Her post made me think not only about the way I see the world, but about the way I choose to live my day to day life. In the profession I've chosen -- or the calling that's chosen me, maybe -- kindness is a necessary tool. And, interestingly, so is strength. I'm not talking about "power," or "authority," although they do certainly enter into the equation of what it means to be a good teacher. (Mostly in the teacher's ability to share them, I think.)

My students looked to me for a number of things: knowledge, guidance, humor, and, yes, kindness and strength. It became clear to me as I grew into and accepted my role as a teacher that young people in the classroom need more than just whatever content they happen to be presented with.

Students need an adult's take on how to use the limited time we have on this planet. My students were receiving multiple messages from multiple sources on what it means to be a human being breathing in and out in this world. Like most teens (myself included, way back when), they got a healthy dose of "live-fast-die-young" stuff, because that message has, and continues, to sell to that market.

I chose to model kindness for my students, in the hopes it might give them a piece of what they needed from me, a way to look at the world, and to live in it. A way that would make the world better after our respective walks on her are done, as well as a way to give them that most precious commodity for a young person hoping to make it to adulthood:

Strength.