TEACHER....5

  This poem is dedicated to all the Teachers

If you want to be a teacher, you first have to learn how to play hopscotch, learn other children games, learn how to watch a snail crawl and read "Yertle the Turtle"...

If you want to be a teacher, you have to blow "she loves me, she loves me nots" with a daisy, wiggle your toes in the mud and let it ooze through them, stomp in the rain puddles, and be humbled by the majesty of a mountain...

If you want to be a teacher, you have to fall in love each day...

If you want to be a teacher, you have to paddle a canoe, take a hike or just get out in nature...

If you want to be a teacher, you have to fly a kite or throw a frisbee, make sandcastles, love people, and listen intently to the rustle of the leaves or the murmur of the brook or the whisper of the breeze...

If you want to be a teacher, you have to dream dreams, play games, talk to the flowers, catch fire flies, admire a weed, walk barefoot in the rain, hold a worm and see what is yet to be...

If you want to be a teacher, you have to think silly thoughts, have a water-gun fight, have a pillow fight, swirl a lollipop in your mouth, burn sparklers at night, and see a tree more than a mass of atoms or so many board feet of lumber or something that's in the way...

If you want to be a teacher, you have to skip as you walk, laugh at yourself, smile at others, hang loose, always have an eraser handy, concoct a recipe, and inspire...

If you want to be a teacher, you have to fix a bird's broken wing, tweak the neck of a deflating balloon, do zany things, to play with a yo-yo, and lose yourself in the quiet scenery to find yourself...

If you want to be a teacher, you have to feed the squirrels or the pigeons, sing in the shower, smell the flowers, watch a spider spin it's web, play with finger paints, and do a belly flop in a pool...

If you want to be a teacher, you have to bring joy into everything, watch in awe a sunset or sunrise, ride on a swing, bump on a seasaw, and even respect a cockroach as a miracle of life...

If you want to be a teacher, you have to ride a bicycle and live for today...

If you want to be a teacher, make all those marvelous feelings and images an intimate part of you and bring them into the classroom with you and share them with your students...

If you want to be a teacher, you have to put aside your formal theories and intellectual constructs and axioms and statistics and charts when you reach out to touch that miracle called an individual human being.

That's what it takes to be a teacher.

- A Teacher