Tonight, I am in the final, nervous preparations for tomorrow when I will run my 4th half marathon and the third time I've run the Harrisburg Half. There's something special about this race. Three years ago, in 2009, this race was my first real race that I completed. It was also my second year in my current teaching position (first year as contracted teacher in the district, though my fourth year teaching).
At the 2009 event, I ran into a fellow teacher (from the same school) who, I would discover later, was an avid runner- a streaker- who had run every day for the past 20 years without ever missing a day. He was 58 and in his last year as a teacher and I was 32 and only just beginning in both my running and teaching career. He finished in 1:51:52 and I finished in 2:03:57. The next weekend he died suddenly in his sleep- it was a devastating loss for his family, his friends, his school, and his community.
The next year, in 2010, I had the opportunity to run the Harrisburg half again, this time being beaten by his daughter, but this time with a new Half-marathon PR 1:46:52- one that stands to this day.
In 2009, I also finished my first full marathon, the Harrisburg marathon, which kick-started my passion for distance running. Since then I've run the Baltimore marathon, the Columbus marathon, and the Shamrock marathon (VA Beach). This year, I'm planning to repeat what I did in 2009 (in better shape and hoping for better times) by running this half again and the full marathon in November.
This is also my 8th year teaching, and in the same way I've seen my development as a runner, I've seen that parallel with the evolution of my teaching. As a runner, I used to spend hours documenting my runs, analyzing my form and training plans. I used to be so tied down to my split times and what the watch said, rather than enjoying the ride... but in 2010, my best 1/2 marathon ever, I forgot to start my watch and was completely oblivious to my time until the finish line. As a teacher, I used to spend hours pouring over my pacing of content and analyzing state test results because those state test results trump everything else... but in recent years, as my test scores have remained commendable, I've tossed out those detailed plans and have learned to release the chains of curriculum and textbooks and teach from the heart.
Ultimately, I'm learning to teach and to run by feel- and I've only gotten better as a result. It's a scary notion to release the watch and detailed training plans; or to release the chains that stifle the creativity in educating children. I've not completely abandoned planning- I generally know what workout I'm going to do, and I generally know what I'm going to teach- but one of the biggest challenges is letting go and allowing the flow and feel of the classroom or the road to dictate the next step.
Some days you've got to change things up, change plans based on the situation or the feel. Sometimes you need to simply abandon what you think is right, because you might be wrong.
Last school year, I was on a long run considering the next day's lesson. I needed to teach my group of 6th graders that the sum of the interior angles of a quadrilateral will be 360 degrees while the sum of the interior angles of a triangle will always be 180 degrees and how to use that information to find missing angles of each. I had created all these diagrams and notes and was fully prepared for the lesson, but I had a problem... on my run, I just kept despairing that this lesson was a dull as clipping one's nails- in that in needed to be done, but it wasn't all that interesting. Then, suddenly, I had an idea.
...a string!
The next morning, I got to school early and quickly changed everything I had planned for the day. As the students arrived in my room for morning homeroom, I was still furiously at work... they didn't know why or what I was doing, but when it was time for class to start, I was ready.
I gave each learning team a looped string. I had them create various quadrilaterals (square, rhombus, parallelogram, etc) together with the string. From the outside it may have looked like chaos, but the students were interested and engaged, standing in all parts of the classroom holding their loops tightly in the shapes.
I took an oversized, chalkboard protractor and measured each angle for each of the various quadrilaterals. I had a student record each measurement on the board for each one, then had the class sit down. I had the whole class add the angles together for each quadrilateral- bam- each measured 360 degrees. I repeated the same activity with triangles- 180 degrees.
What does this tell you about quadrilaterals? What does this tell you about triangles? Why? Then I got to show them some diagrams and we discussed the reasons why this worked. Then we started looking for missing angles... and I never had a class understand this one concept better.
I never wrote it down in a required lesson plan format that had been due one week prior... no one ever knew that this is what I did.
It was organic, evolving, and flowing. It was fluid, like breathing. That is what teaching should be. That is what running should be. That is how I want to live. Free.
I believe that God made us to be free, and it is a hard lesson to learn. I'm still learning. In all honesty, we are never more free than when we surrender completely to God's will. Because God is The creative genius. With God's creativity in us, there is nothing we can't do. That applies to teaching, running, and living.
In God's Freedom,
Paul
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