Start with The Mindset

The other day there was a comment that there is no such thing as a minimalist teacher. You all know how I feel about minimalism, and teaching, so....

Many of you also know that my good friend and I wrote a book about this exact thing, and that comment was at the bottom of a photo with the book cover.

Here was my thought process after I read this: 

I felt defensive, then a bit angry and simultaneously a bit sad. But then, hope revealed itself.

• Initially, the comment made me go on the defensive because I know what they mean - it seems impossible to be a minimalist teacher - but they also don't know what the book is actually about. They literally judged the book by the title.
• Then, I felt a bit angry and simultaneously sad because they disagreed with the TITLE of a book, and it was the judgement that made me think that if this person is quick to judge about the title of a book, how quickly do they judge the students in front of them? How quickly do they assume that they do not need to learn something deeper about the art of teaching?
  
• And then I realized - this is one reason why we wrote this book. To bring people into this way of thinking. While I would love for everyone to see and experience the value of bringing minimalism into their teaching lives, I know it's not realistic.

A lot of thought came out of what was probably intended to be a 'whatever' comment, but it's our job as educators to share and learn from each other so we can be better practitioners and create better learning opportunities for our students.