Inspiring Children

Studying a four-year long course can have its downtimes, especially when it comes to leaving your bed every morning. Studying a course about studying so that you can inspire others to study too can also have its downtimes, yet there are precious gemstones that lie hidden every now and again.

Yesterday, I came across one of these precious gems, at a moment I least expected - the moment right before I left class. I was one of the four left in the class, the other twenty-two having ran off as soon as they handed in their work hours earlier, and my friend and I stayed behind even considering we finished hours earlier, while the other two worked on their essays, attempting to finish before four. Now that all of that was over, we all began packing up our things. Amongst the ruckus caused from the clattering and zipping of bags, a classmate said something to me that will resonate within me throughout my entire teaching career.

"Remember that origami frog you made us make last year for your science presentation?" I had a quick blast to the past in my mind, and recalled the time when I uploaded an instructional video of myself on YouTube making an origami frog for a mini-lesson in class, just in case I stuffed up. My classmates kept up well and truly and were each able to make a paper-frog that could hop around. I did not know, though, that it would still be spoken about a year later. "Yes?" I replied.

"Well," she continued," the other day I happened to be in my niece's bedroom and right up on the top shelf, on display is the frog that I made in your mini-lesson!" I had to stop for a minute to absorb it - how did it get there? Why was it there? "It turns out she kept my frog that I made in your class and she is now so inspired by it that she has ought her own origami kit and is making all these wonderful origami objects!" I could not believe it. A little person that I do not know has been inspired by something I set forth into the world through a minuscule lesson, a lesson that I thought was only for a mere mark that would be forgotten after I had graduated. Boy, was I wrong.

Something that I once thought so little of is now the basis of inspiration for a little girl. Something that I once considered irrelevant to life is now the meaning of life for that little person. Something that I thought was unimportant is now so important for her that she requested that her mother bought her an origami kit, that she took the time to clean her top shelf and reserve a large portion of it for my idea. My mind whirled. And then it dawned on me: we can impact people without even knowing, without even considering it, without even planning it.

I still remember that day. It was such a drag. I did not feel comfortable teaching a lesson. I ddi not feel comfortable standing in front of people I did not know to make them do something that they probably did not want to do. I did not know what to do with the topic I had chosen, which was about the life-cycles of frogs, so I stuck with the idea of folding one and watching it hop across a desk. To my surprise, it ended up hopping into someone's life and changing it for the better. I may have just inspired that little girl to think a little more creatively each time she is faced with a problem. Maybe she may go on to inspire her friends in the classroom to make objects out of scrap paper. Maybe she will become a paper artist, making paper sculptures. Maybe she will become a pop-up book designer. Maybe she will run a paper company. Who knows?

But what I know for certain is that my simple act paved an entirely new path for her. And that is the effect we teachers have on the world. One little footstep at a time, one little activity, one little idea can make a whole heap of new ones. We aspire to inspire.