What Would Winnie the Pooh Do?

Sometimes fictional characters lead us to examine our own lives more deeply. I was reminded of this by another blogger as she wrote

When I am teaching I sometimes think, "What would Winnie the Pooh do?" Winnie the Pooh and the other characters from the Hundred Acre Wood are often simply and profoundly wise. When I am sometimes stumped, my thoughts turn to Winnie the Pooh.

Let me tell you a bit about my day at school yesterday, and I will sprinkle in some words of wisdom from Winnie the Pooh as it relates to my teaching and to life.

It began in much the same way that every other day of my substitute teaching begins. I was jogging down the hall at school, allright if truth be told I was running as if I were being chased by assailants and they were in hot pursuit of me, to get to the office. I ran nearly the entire length of the first floor hallway and skidded to a stop right before the main office door. Fortunately it is always kept open otherwise there would be days when I would probably crash right into it. Then I beat a path to the timeclock and punched in as all the teachers do. I was right on time.

This early morning jog is really about getting my heart rate up and squeezing in some exercise first thing in the day. Winnie the Pooh's character does his stoutness exercises. For me teaching is my cardio.

Then it was off to the classroom to prep, and licketly split moments later the children start to arrive. Arrival time is a critical time of day. I take a good look at each child and check to see if anything seems out of the ordinary, greet each child by name and have a short chat to find out what's what with them. This is the time of day when I check each child's emotional pulse so to speak and get a baseline so I have an idea of where we are. I say we because we, the children and I, are most definitely in this thing together, all day until dismissal at the end of the school day.

Winnie the Pooh would say, "A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference." You bet it does.

Read the rest here as it was Editor's Choice over at Salon and it is a delightful distraction from our usual cynicism into the world of child-like wonder.