So I have been away from this blogging challenge for a few days now. I am sure this has not had a major impact on your life, Dear Reader, but if it has, then I can only apologise. You see I have been busy remembering to be human.
I came back from the Year 12 camp on Friday after 3 wonderful days with some amazing young people and some pretty awesome older people too. In that time I put up a volleyball net on the beach, I played beach volleyball, I supervised students swimming in the sea with dolphins, did a beach walk, went to a session on careers, watched "Eternal Sunlight of the Spotless Mind" (which I had not seen for many years) in an outdoors amphitheatre with 220 year 12 students discovering the movie for the first time with popcorn, went stand-up paddle boarding (but stayed mainly on my knees), attended a lecture on astronomy and saw the storm on Jupiter's face, dealt with home sick kids, sick kids, kids who just wanted to chat with me and kids who just wanted to chat all night. Now you may think that was a long sentence, but the days flowed like that, with little interruption, a gentle tide of learning and being human with over 200 others at the beach. I was not being a teacher with a lesson plan and learning objectives, I was simply being and the learning came on its own.
Upon my return, I saw the other side of being human; the unconditional love of my amazing wife and the fragility of my 9 year old son who was suffering gastro. One is most human at 1am washing vomit off the bedclothes and reassuring your child that it is ok. He has been quite poorly over the weekend but is much better now and bouncing back to his normal, jovial and loving self.
It struck me during both of these events; the camp and the gastro, that not only does being human mean an acceptance that, on the universal scale (in comparison with Jupiter's red storm for example) we are insignificant, living our short lives on this pale, blue dot, but at the same time, being human allows us to fill others' universe with love, compassion, caring and laughter.
So my challenge to myself and perhaps to you is, amidst the hubbub of planning, teaching, assessing, meeting, working to meet targets and robotically fulfilling deadlines, always remember to be human as it is the one thing that really matters.
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