Reaching Beyond the Room

So I had the great honor of speaking to a great friend of mine and international educator, Eric Hayes, who has a podcast, “Simply Mr Hayes.” It had been a while since we’d last talked but you wouldn’t know it based on the depth of conversation, collaboration, sharing and understanding within the conversation.

One of the many powerful realizations was that of a story Eric shared about his being “all-in” with students, as it resonated greatly with my whole approach to teaching and learning.

“It’s not just about the teach, it’s about the reach.”

Eric shared the story of how his influence with his students, currently in Brazil, is one that he doesn’t take lightly. He pours into his students. He is real with his students. In fact, he is real with everyone. Eric spoke of relationships he forged with students and maintained over time. I agreed with the power that being concerned about said relationships can have on the lives of both teachers and students. The inspiration behind this blog post came when he shared a specific example of a student who he had taught that had gone onto college in the United States and returned to Brazil. Eric described that his intent was to build a podcasting platform and sought to construct its name, purpose and description. He reached out to the student, who studied to be an engineer, who was not only able to provide inspiration, but was also very instrumental in helping Mr. Hayes solidify the ideas in his mind. Amazing right?

Well, that isn’t even the best part. I mean I believe it is a powerful thing for you to serve your students so much that they want to maintain a connection to you and in this case, be a tremendous help! The best part about this, is that the student in question was not actually a student that Eric had in his class. After blowing my mind with this information, I just had to write down this title “Reaching Beyond the Room.” What if our presence inside of school buildings or communities was so intense and full of passion and life that we are able to have an impact on even those we don’t teach?! What if the very nature of our influence was not limited to just the students in the classroom in which we teach? What if our influence even reached beyond the walls of the school and carried over into conversations in the homes of our students?

I was so inspired by Eric’s story. It’s one thing to have an impact on students that you teach, ones you see every day in the classroom and interact with. However, it is something altogether different and SPECIAL when your influence carries over into those that you meet and may have occasional conversations with. Now, Eric’s podcast hit the ground running, because of what started with Eric’s reach that has not stopped reaching.