There was a wonderful article in this week's Christmas Special edition of the Economist. One particular paragraph got me thinking about time and how precious it is:
Alas time, ultimately, is a strange and slippery resource, easily traded, visible only when it passes and often most highly valued when it is gone. No one has ever complained of having too much of it. Instead, most people worry over how it flies, and wonder where it goes. Cruelly, it runs away faster as people get older, as each accumulating year grows less significant, proportionally, but also less vivid. Experiences become less novel and more habitual. The years soon bleed together and end up rushing past, with the most vibrant memories tucked somewhere near the beginning. And of course, the more one tries to hold on to something, the swifter it seems to go.
For those of us who are teachers, it is easy to forget as the years march on what it was like to be young, to experience things with the all the heady, carefree delight of them being new. For us lessons that were exciting and fun the first time we planned them, have begun to lose their shine. And as each year merges into the next we become inured to some of the magical school-day moments that we witness routinely.
This time of year, in particular, is an enchanting time for children; those of us who are getting a bit longer in the tooth need to rediscover some of that enchantment. No matter how many times we might have done something, for the children we teach things are new and exciting. We owe it to them to share in the delight of learning something for the first time.
Have a very happy Christmas.