Bringing Your Heart to Work

I was reading David Warlick's blog, of which I have an rss feed through Google Reader. He attended a business leaders conference and heard a speaker, Steve Farber, a leadership guru. David noted something he heard from this keynote that struck a cord with me. Steve Farber at one point said, “You want your employees to bring their hearts with them to their jobs.” That has been something on my mind lately. How do we help people bring their hearts to their jobs?

I must say, there are a great number of people I work with in this district that do this everyday...bring their hearts to their jobs. I try to do this everyday as well. And I have been accused of being very passionate about my job, about technology and about education. I try to bring that to our Technology Team in the District.

There's been a lot of talk lately about people getting tired of learning more technology. "Please, not another new thing." It knocked me back a bit. Someone then commented was to me that if someone hadn't learned something, we haven't taught it. While I believe that to be true, as a former classroom teacher, I have experienced something different when it comes to adult learners. There is a point that some folks come to where we no longer thirst for knowledge. We no longer retain the "spongy-ness" that my 3-year-old displays everyday. Mommy, what is this? Mommy, what is that? And the unabashed asking of the same question over and over...and me thinking of 10 different ways to answer.

That's the kind of "heart" we want our students to keep about learning...an unashamed quest to know. How can we help our students - both child and adult - maintain a teachable heart that loves learning? So what stops us as adults from wanting to know more? When do adults start saying, "I don't want to know." That is something I want to prevent...from ages 1 to 99. So in my designs of staff development and support, I am struck by this idea that we want people to bring their hearts to their jobs.

Just something tugging lately at my heart that I bring to work...