What Would Wordsworth Do? (WWWD?)

As we all well know, summer is a great time for teachers. I actually make the salsa that goes with  dinner instead of buying it, I finish reading the books I started during the school year, I finish pesky house projects (re-did a family photo wall collage last week!), I nap if my body is telling me I'm tired, I take the dog for longer romps in the woods (saw butterflies mating the other day--wild stuff!) and make a point to see friends more often. It's civilized and it's healthy, and I think it's a shame that other professionals don't get the same downtime--it improves the quality of my one and only life on this planet!

So....this book is giving me agita. I have to be faster! Better! More creative! I should be spending my summer reinventing the teaching profession, not lounging around! Read one lousy book and blog about it? HA! Not nearly enough! The world is changing!

Oy vey. I wonder if this is an age-related/generational response? Is it because I'm on the other side of 40? I don't know why I'm seeing the idea of progress and quality of life as mutually exclusive? I will work on shifting my paradigm.

I know the authors praise the role of downtime and play in creativity and innovation, and it's not that I'm complacent--I do try to be a better teacher every year (and every day), but boy "Average is Over" was more nerve-wracking than inspiring. I will continue to try to be better at what I do, but I also want to take time to enjoy life, and think other people should, too.  This seems to be a conundrum of the future for other people like me, though, where quality of life will be an important commodity (see Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, which happens to be referenced on 145. Awesome read.).

I shared this 1806 Wordsworth poem with my students this year, and boy--did they get it. I'm reminded of it more and more often these days, and never cease to be amazed by how cyclical history really is. It's so current to me (more so because of our rampant consumerism than reasons I discussed here, but still relevant):

"THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON"

          THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
          Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
          Little we see in Nature that is ours;
          We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
          The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
          The winds that will be howling at all hours,
          And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
          For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
          It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
          A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;                         10
          So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
          Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
          Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
          Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.