"WHAT A BEAUTIFUL LIFE YOU LIVE"

A person very close to my heart recently surprised me by saying, "What a beautiful life you live..." upon hearing about my teaching and my commitment to global education.

I found it surprising to be the focus of this simple, almost magical bit of praise. I had, of course, thought about the intrinsic value of teaching and the personal rewards of my involvement in global education many times during my 30+ years of global teaching -- but I had never thought or heard words that touchingly simple: "What a beautiful life you live." Taken aback by the simple power of those words, I was forced to focus on them and ponder their implications.

We teachers who wake-up daily before the end of our dreams, who "punch-in-and-out" the bureaucratic clock on the way to and from educating others, who are typically immersed in paper and paperless work, parental contacts, lesson plans, test preparation, homework correction and classroom discipline, may be easily distracted from our real jobs: we are global educators. we intend to create a better world through the agency of our students.

We welcome young, eager, sometimes immature students -- ordinarily the products of our cultures' narrow-minded conditioning -- and take steps to help them develop their global vision, their human sensitivity, their intrinsic humanism. We attempt to nurture their potential and enrich their very being. We hope that they will become the masters and mistresses of their chosen professional futures and use their expertise and commitment to create a better world for all humanity.

Is there a better way to spend our years on this living planet? Is there a more noble or more powerful undertaking? Is there a more worthwhile and rewarding professional pursuit?

Let us at least occasionally look beyond the daily tasks and toils of daily schooling. Let us at least occasionally ignore the incongruity of society's limited material rewards. And during those moments, let us instead revel in the intrinsic value of our own efforts -- imperfect as they may be at times -- and look anew, freshly and hopefully at what we really do: we educate global citizens; we empower the princes and princesses of tomorrow; we endeavor to create a better world.

How many professions can claim that as their over-arching goal? How many industries contribute in the same measure? None that I know of. None. Not one.

So, fellow global educators, rest assured that beyond the daily tasks and toils, beyond the bureaucratic trivia and the occasionally overwhelming demands, your work has value that others cannot claim. Your work perdures beyond your life and grave. Your work is noble, beautiful and long lasting. And when someone at some future time approaches you and says, "What a beautiful life you live," you will perhaps be a little less surprised than I was.