Monday, September 15, 2008

You Teach Best What You Need to Learn Most.

While I'm writing this, I'm also watching TV. What a Multi-Tasker!
I know I should press 'mute', but  I'm rivetted to an interview with  a controversial Australian neurosurgeon called Dr Charlie Teo who spends his days removing brain tumours from people, of which, seventy per cent are malignant.
Charlie plays the bagpipes, has a black belt in karate & rides v. fast motor bikes because he loves speed.  He said that he feels that we should 'embrace life' . He got quite cranky when he gave examples of people getting angry over things like being cut off in traffic or getting upset about having hemorrhoids, when every day he has to operate on people who are going to die in the prime of their lives, leaving little children & spouses etc. Charlie feels that we all should be happy. 
I just Love hearing that stuff.  I'm the kind of person who  loves getting incredibly steamed up over a large number of Tiny Little Issues like someone getting served in a shop before me even though I was there first. 
And I also felt sad that I wasn't a neurosurgeon.  Not that I've ever wanted to be one before. In fact, the closest I've come to thinking about neurosurgeons is wanting to marry 'Ben Casey' who was a gorgeously smouldering TV doctor in the sixties who managed to look  sexy while he was telling a patient that they only had days to live.
But back to the job that I actually do. Here I am today wearing a vintage Spring outfit trying my best to lamely motivate my Senior Class into putting that last little bit of effort in before their Final Future-Deciding Exams. This is their last week of school forever.
 They all know the drawing on the whiteboard quite well as I've drawn it many times, although today one of them had to draw the legs for me as I'd forgotten how to draw them. In case you can't see it, it's a drawing of a horse with a person trying to get back on it. The caption says, 'When in doubt, Get Back on the Horse'.
Actually, I was thinking that the message of the drawing was probably more for me right now than for them. But you know you teach best what you need to learn yourself.

2 comments:

Darla said...

Funny coincidence, I'm getting ready to post something that includes a picture of a horse. At least I think it is a horse. Maybe it is a mule. Can you tell I'm a city girl?

Darla

Jane said...

Lovely outfit, lovely post and tear-jerking ethos.
Three of the reasons I have put you up for an award on my site.