Collaboration and support will bring out the best in all of us. We should be allowed to ask for help and say we can’t do it alone. Instead of praising our strength, why not praise our vulnerability and insight, for knowing when we are drowning instead of swimming, working to death rather than growing in life?

Recently, I was taught a simplified version of a cultural tradition. The idea is that we all have a bowl that we carry in our hands, placed near our chests, and we all have a golden light that shines out into the world. As we go about our days, rocks representing our anger, guilt, and transgressions (both against us and committed by us) build up in that bowl that we are carrying.

Author and Researcher Daniel Pink has combined forces with The Washington Post to make all of us stop and ask the question: Why not? As Pink explains, it is not an effort to allow people to complain, harass, or fill the bucket that is already so full with more cynicism; but, instead, to push us to spend some real thought on how to improve our world.

In a crowded yoga studio, a vulnerability was shared with us — and what transpired was pure magic. Our teacher began our trip with no plan, yet led us to an hour-long discovery of both fluid movement and self-reflection. Her years of teaching and thousands of hours of training allowed her to create an experience that pushed all of us to stretch both our bodies and our imaginations, and to ask the question: What more could I do if I was open to not knowing the next step

While perusing the greeting cards in a used book store, I discovered the secret to joyful teaching on the front of a greeting card. The instructions were concise and absolutely crystal clear on how to best perform our jobs as educators.

As I struggled with my one legged tree pose in a recent yoga class, my mind wandered to the question that I have always wrestled with: When did education, in any form, become something that’s done to us, and not considered for us?

If trust, community, and relationships are to be built, then correct names must be used — no excuses. It is the basic foundation of relationships and, of course, teaching is relationship-based.

Sending a wish for not just this woman, but for all that are soon walking into their classrooms: May you be recognized, appreciated, and treated like you matter.

One of my favorite field trips I regularly took with my seventh-grade history students was to a very large cemetery, filled with stones dating as far back as the early 1700s. One tradition that always brought the most questions from my students was the act of recording the exact number of years, months, and days someone was alive. Year after year, class after class, these numbers tickled their existential awareness.

What she experienced this week is what so many educators experience — a sense of loneliness while discerning the needs of those put in her care. We all had the same illness, but different needs.

Parker Palmer’s “The Courage to Teach” felt like it was written for me (and apparently millions like me, hence the best seller status). Palmer reached into my classroom, my psyche, and spoke truth about my struggles, my successes, and the forces that limit what I try to achieve when teaching.

Twenty minutes, a stick of chalk, one red ball, and a professor smart and brave enough to recognize something new was needed—and we totally changed the trajectory of our academic experiences and, ultimately, those of our own students, as well.

On a beautiful Saturday morning last month, my daughter and I participated in an on-site flower arranging class at a local florist’s farm, Olivia’s Flower Truck.

Recently, due to my posting of these weekly blogs, I was connected by a friend to an educator in the Reading, PA-area who is changing the total culture and processes of public school education.

Educators everywhere are doing something they have not traditionally done—they are moving.

They are moving buildings, grade levels, to other school districts, and out of the profession all together. These teachers are on a hunt and seeking change. The Great Move has begun, and we have to ask ourselves why and what will the end results be for our kids.

How long do we hold on to items, ideas, and projects that no longer serve us or the students we teach?

Throughout our lives, we have been focused on the bullseye—the grades, the degree, the perfect job, the house, the end goal… whatever it is. Now, what if we change our perspective and, instead of seeing a bullseye, we see a table with puzzle pieces, trying to merge those pieces together, creating and uncreating?

A few weeks ago, as I stretched myself into new yoga positions, my teacher encouraged us by saying the following, “Honor your authentic selves, your gentle selves.” Those words stopped me in my serpentine stretch.

What real educators know is that, at some point, every teacher — even the ones with years of training and experience — could use a little help with a new project, idea, or student(s) you just can’t reach.

Each and every one of us is shaped by so many factors, some more impactful than others.

What you teach is as important as who you teach. Do you know who your students are?