Who am I? What do I believe? What are my core values?

I feel like the more classes I take, the more experiences I have and the further I travel through life, the more my mind expands. It becomes less narrow, and more open to possibilities. It also shows me how little I do know and how much more is left, that will probably never be known, at least while I'm here. I'm starting to learn that it's not what you know, but how you come to know it. It's not the direct route from A to B that matters most, sometimes it's a windy road. When Boonshaft talks about 'the little old man knew', I can't help but think of myself years from now, feeling very similar to the way he did. Being a teacher isn't about how much knowledge you can cram in the skull of a student so that they can pass that test. It's about creating a learning environment that will follow them for life. I think of one of my students in a Kindergarten class. Now I'm not a certified teacher, just a mere intern at an Elementary school. One little boy, quite a character actually. He loves singing and dancing, just full of life. He wasn't always so. I remember his first day of Kindergarten.... meek and quiet, barely looked up from the ground. I worked with his teacher that whole first day. His first day of school, my first day interning. We were both unsure of what would come. The teacher tried breaking the ice for all her students by playing a childhood favorite, "the Chicken Dance". Most of the kids were all about it! This boy however, sat in his seat and said he never heard it before. So me (preparing to be a music teacher) had to hop up and do the chicken dance with the kids. This young boy still was weary, but I eventually got him to smile as he did the 'chicken' part of the dance. Then slowly, but surely, the rest of it. We had a bond at that moment. So fast forward a month or so into the school year. He and his older brother got taken by DCF and were in a new home, same school. Him, being 5 just waltz in talking about all the happenings on how him and his brother were now living with their 'new mommy' and couldn't see their real mommy. Needless to say life for this 5 year old pretty much sucked. School for him offered the love and support he lacked at 'home' (he was eventually moved from house to house for a long period of time), but the educational portion lacked. He was being taught at school, but nothing seemed to stick. He wasn't able to practice it at 'home', which was the least of his worries. Then one day I worked with him  in his class again. Since, as an intern, I was bounced around from class to class, I did not get to work with him on a regular basis. Well one day he was told to practice writing his numbers. The rest of the class pretty much perfected their number writing, a few backwards 3's here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary for Kindergarten. He needed more help. So we worked on a small dry erase board at his desk. I dotted out numbers for him, he traced them, tried to recognize the number... this was difficult for him. He became really discouraged, really fast. He cried and said things like, "I can't do it. I can never do it." I kept reassuring him, but he was down. Until the moment I went to dot out a 7 for him to trace.  I'll never forget it. He reached his little arm out in front of me to block me from doing so and said, "I got this!" and without hesitation he drew a huge 7! Perfection! The most beautiful 7 I ever saw, I close my eyes and I can still see it as clear as that day. 7 is now my favorite number because it reminds me of that little boy and the world of possibilities that opened in HIS mind, that very day. Some might call that a small feat, but they didn't hear the conviction in his voice when he took the reigns and made that '7' appear.
That's what I believe in. Those moments that to others, may seem like some tiny little thing. So that boy is being retained. He used to only 'want' to come to school because it gave him normalcy, because he didn't have to be there with some new family. But it was that moment that he 'wanted' to come back to school everyday. School should be more than just a safe haven for kids, and for him it is. It's the place he learned how to write a 7, and I got to witness it. I got to see that moment, the light in his eyes. I got to feel the slight sting of his 'high five' for having written the best 7 imaginable. That's what I believe in. Those moments. I didn't 'dot out' that 7 for him to trace. He did that all himself. But I was there to help him realize his potential, and I was there to help him celebrate his accomplishments. I can't help but think that he'll continue to love to learn, because he believes he can, and he knows there's at least one other person in the world who believes he can as well.
When Boonshaft talked about the science teacher who asked his students if the bucket was full after he filled it with 'big rocks', I chuckled inside. I knew what was coming in this chapter, being the daughter of a hydraulic engineer. I swear my father told me as a zygote that 'fluid fills the shape of it's container'. Not big rocks or medium rocks, even sand. The air in the container technically filled it, even the oxygen molecules in the water. Nonetheless, the visual aid really helps to embed the meaning. The 'big rocks' are things like posture and breath control. But if you harp on the fundamentals too much, that will give you a disengaged student, and eventually leave you jobless and a more robotic culture. Sometimes you have to add that human element to your teaching, that instant satisfaction. Like writing a 7. Sure it's a long way from doing even simple math problems, but it's a step that motivates the learner to, well learn. Not to say posture and breath control are mundane and therefore do not belong in actual practice. Of course not. But sometimes you have to bend a little to engage the learner. The slowly add in bigger rocks.
I feel I am a lifelong learner. My students teach me just as much, if not more, as I teach them. Teaching book knowledge is essential. Teaching for actual practice is obviously useful as well. But you can't teach someone to want to learn. It's getting them to want to learn that's the tricky part.