(Re-)Discover Your Passions

(This is step three in the free Teacher 2.0 course/"experience" at Mightybell - participate at https://mightybell.com/experiences/3ff5259e1c4d9948-Teacher-2-0.)

Write something you love doing or something you love learning about. You are not limited to one thing!

Some questions to ponder:

  • Why these are so valuable to you in your life?
  • Do you spend as much time as you need to focusing on your passions?
  • Do your students/children know what your passions are?
  • Do you know what your students'/children's passions are?
  • How are passions and talents different?  Do they need to be the same?

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Permalink Reply by Alice Keeler on September 10, 2011 at 9:43pm
I love helping people and brainstorming. They are valuable because this is the talent that God has given me, to be a support to others. I think I spend a lot of time doing what I am passionate about, my problem is that I am wildly passionate about many things! And everyone knows what I am passionate about, I either love it or hate it and believe me you will know about it!!!
Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on September 11, 2011 at 3:28am
I totally agree that you are 1) great at helping people, and 2) wildly passionate about many things. :)
Permalink Reply by Laura Gibbs on September 11, 2011 at 8:02am

I love fables and proverbs. Learning a new story or a new proverb gives me a kind of jolt of awareness and pleasure that I can't really compare to anything else! I feel very lucky that these are also things that are easy to share and that WANT to be shared with other people, too. Plus, they NEED to be shared; it used to be that people had a vast store of fables and proverbs which they acquired from all kinds of sources - from other people and also from books (especially the Bible). Now, though, for lots of reasons, that knowledge has dropped off precipitously… but I think people do still crave these little packets of fun and knowledge, even if they are not as persistent in our daily lives as they once were. So, I collect them, and I share them (I blog them, I make them into widgets: the Internet is my playground!), and I don't think I will ever get tired of it! I'm guessing that every single person who knows me know about my fable and proverb obsession. Plus, since there is a whole world of such stuff out there, I will never run out of new discoveries.

I like this question about passions and talents. I said my talent was enthusing over other people's discoveries… well, I am an equal-opportunity enthusiast, as you can see, because I enthuse over my own discoveries, too, without embarrassment.

One of the reasons I like promoting the Internet with my students is that I hope it can give them a place to share their passions, if that is what they want to do. Just right now, in week 2 of our semester, they make a practice website using Google Sites prior to making their project website for the class. Some of them choose to make their practice website about their passion, whatever that might be - cars, food, movies, sports... I am always glad when they choose to do that: of course, some people do not want to share their passions, which is fine… but when people DO want to share their passions, I think we are all the richer for it.

Here is the happy outcome last summer of my Aesop's fable obsession - Mille Fabulae et Una: 1001 Aesop's Fables in Latin. Free PDF (but yes, it is all in Latin). I can safely say that in the 2500 years of Aesop's fables being told and re-told in Latin, this is the single biggest book of Aesop's fables anybody has ever made. And since finishing that book, oh, I have found even more fables I wish I had included! :-)

 

Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on September 12, 2011 at 12:48pm
I'm going to give this to my daughter's Latin teacher.  I would imagine that these as reading assignments in Latin would be a GREAT way to get satisfaction as a student.
Permalink Reply by Laura Gibbs on September 12, 2011 at 12:51pm

Oh yes, Steve, please spread the word - I do fun Latin stuff at the blog all the time, including simplified versions of the fables in this book! :-)

Bestiaria Latina

Permalink Reply by kim.ibara on September 12, 2011 at 1:42pm

Travel is something I love doing and something that I continue to learn from. As a language teacher, one of my main goals is to open students' eyes to the fact that they are constantly filtering their experience through a pair of mono-cultural glasses, and educational travel can really broaden their perspective. It is so gratifying to watch how travel changes people! It offers insights that one cannot get any other way.

 

It is imperative that we educate the upcoming generation to truly be global citizens, not just in their social connections via the Internet but with the understanding that the choices they make and the influence they bring to bear through the decisions they make have global consequences. I LOVE it when someone realizes that a cultural behavior that seemed easy to judge at first is nuanced and dependent on many factors. We need people who can look beyond the obvious and refrain from making judgments based on differences!

 

Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on September 12, 2011 at 1:46pm
I just visited our 18-year-old daughter in Nepal who is doing a humanitarian gap year.  Her perspective has been TOTALLY changed.  I had the same experience at her age as an exchange student in Brazil for a year.  Are you going to present at our http://www.globaledcon.com? :)
Permalink Reply by kim.ibara on September 12, 2011 at 2:02pm

I love the term "humanitarian gap year"! Let's hope it turns into a humanitarian lifetime :)

 

I will check out the conference information...looks intriguing! 

Permalink Reply by Carole McCulloch on September 14, 2011 at 12:20am

My passion for writing, family history and eportfolios can all come together in the one space. Eportfolios are filling my head with ideas. Most of my family know about the writing and family history passion but not the eportfolio stuff; most of my colleagues know about the eportfolio passion but not the writing and family history stuff. Thought: maybe I should use my talents to bring these together!...

Passions and talents can be completely different but both essential for lifelong learning. I really want to learn how to 'draw' (the manual kind with pencil and paper) so I've branched out of my comfort zone to do the AlphaChimp University course on drawing. All online with videos to step through the process - and exercises to shape your activities. Sadly my talent is at the opposite end to my passion for being able to do so.

I realise that this new passion will take time to develop and i should allow myself some time to focus on this. My goal is to have another passion that can fill my days of retirement - and to enable me to continue to learn.

Permalink Reply by Lynne Gibb on September 16, 2011 at 5:58pm

Love learning about new technology and using it. Love hearing about others' successes especially if they have found the going hard. Love seeing elderly ppl's faces light up when they realise they can use a piece of technology. Love working with young children & sharing their explorations of the world. Love sharing adult students s explorations into new technology. Love sharing a book with a child! Doing these things helps me feel valued, fulfilled and excited. I don't get enough time to practise using new technology and that frustrates me as I feel I am jack of all trades and master of none. My family knows thatIi am passsionate about technology, that I love reading and sharing books with children. My students also know I am passionate about technology - they constantly hear it from me and from all my colleagues! My son's passion is also technology - more into the gaming side and movies as is my husband. Passions and talent are different - you can be passionate about anything - for instance, I am passionate about the Wallabies Rugby team but I can't play rugby! You may or may not be passionate about your talents. In fact, some people are who have perhaps been pushed in their childhood to perform too early can decide not to use their talents. Talents and being passionate  are different things which can often go together but not always!

Permalink Reply by Claire Kyzer on September 21, 2011 at 4:01pm

I love to learn new ideas and then try to figure out how these  would look in action.  I am passionate about educational theory and philosophy, but I also enjoy the challenge of translating these into "real life", i.e. What would this look like in the classroom?  What would this mean for a student?

When I was working on my Masters I spent more time on this, but now I am still able to keep in touch to a certain extent through podcasts (e.g. Ted Talks, RSA), online communities, my school's library and lecture series in my community.  I have learned to look for opportunities to "feed" my passion.

However, I don't really connect my passion to my students.  It does inform my practice, but I don't share much of "myself", who I am, with them and I am often too busy to really get to know their interests and passions.

I have talents, but I am not passionate about all of them.  I am good at things, but those things might not be the things that drive me forward.  This is the difference between talents and passions.

Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on September 23, 2011 at 1:07pm
I agree with that distinction between talents and passions.  I'm anxious to hear if you decide to share more of yourself with your students.

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