Spread #4 - The Empress Spread for Teachers

So I decided to keep this week's spread short and sweet. Since I talked mostly about The Empress having to do with  being creative and nurturing in the last post, I figured it would be best to focus our spread on those two aspects. So here we go!

How can I be more creative? The Magician
How can I become more nurturing? Death

First of all, it is amazing to me how many of these spreads I've done on the blog have contained Major Arcana cards. I plan on doing a video soon about my thoughts on this.

How can I be more creative?

But it is totally unsurprising to me that the Magician would appear for our creativity category. When I look at this card I can almost transport him into a classroom and instead of seeing him holding his wand, I envision him holding a piece of chalk (or a dry erase marker). I look at him surrounded by his tools and feel inspired by his ability to make magic out of what he has in front of him. That's exactly what we are called to do. We must make magic out of our resources. We must mesmerize our students with our passion for our subject matter and by presenting that information in fun and interesting ways. When I think of the magician, I remember being a kid at a birthday party or a festival watching the magician in awe at his ability to pull a rabbit out of his hat or saw a person in half. Even last summer, I took my son to an amusement park and we went to see a magic show, and I observed the look of amazement on the faces of all the children (and even the adults) as the magician performed his tricks. I know for myself, I would love to have my students look at me with that same kind of wonder and be totally engrossed in my lessons!

When I was a rookie teacher, a veteran teacher told me that teaching was mostly acting. I was offended by this at the time because I felt like if I wanted to be an actor, I would have become an actor and gone into movies and made way more money. I didn't become a teacher so I could "perform on a stage" for my students. I just wanted to present the material and have them learn it. As I think back on that, I wish I could talk to my rookie teacher self and let her know that she had it all wrong!  As a teacher, showmanship is just as important as knowledge. What good is having the knowledge if your students aren't truly grasping the material? And when I look at the Magician, I see the ultimate showman.

So how can we be more creative? We need to get in touch with our inner showman. We need to design lessons that will catch our audience's attention. We need to take our resources - our textbooks, our white boards, our index cards, our computers, etc. - and make magic with them. So really take some time to meditate on how you can make magic in your classroom. It may require you to step out of your comfort zone, but the results will be worth it!

How can I be more nurturing?

I know that the Death card can make new readers feel uncomfortable. But I want to assure you that there is nothing negative about this card, especially in this reading. The Death card represents endings and transitions. Like our own literal deaths, our souls will transition from our physical bodies to a more ethereal plane of existence. The transitions we face with the Death card do not have to be painful and in fact, besides being necessary and unavoidable, can also be a welcome change.

What this card says to me is that in order to be more nurturing, a part of me has to die. And that part of me is limiting beliefs. This is really true because I have already been noticing my former beliefs about teaching transforming right before my eyes. So I feel this card is asking us to sit down and look very closely (and even write down) our current beliefs about teaching. Are those beliefs in alignment with the energy of the Empress? Are they in alignment with being compassionate and nurturing? If not, it's time to adjust those beliefs - thus, letting your old beliefs die out and creating a space for new ones.

For example, I know that my former teaching practices were not in alignment with compassion and nurturing. I was very rigid and had very strict beliefs about how I was the authority and the students were there to listen to me and do as I said. When students were rude or disrespectful, lazy or apathetic, unprepared and unorganized, I had no patience for any of that whatsoever. I took it personally and developed a very "them against me" mentality. Thankfully, I matured and grew and let go of those limiting beliefs and developed new ones. Now I see teaching as a partnership. I see it as my duty to guide students to be more polite, productive, and focused. It is my role to model the behaviors I want to manifest in my students. And I can see how learning from the Magician would help me to be the teacher I knew I could be. So to be more nurturing, I had to let my old ways die that kept me from truly connecting with my students and letting them feel valued and appreciated - and that is what the Death card is all about!

I would love to know what cards come up for you in this reading. So please feel free to share in the comments section below!