There are many advantages to building relationships between the teacher and students. Many of my educational classes focused on how good it is to build strong relationships with the kids, because it creates a caring and respectful classroom. I have really taken this skill to heart while I am developing my own teaching style. In fact, I try and make it a top priority in my classes. There are so many advantages to doing this, however today I felt both joy and a sense of being overwhelmed. I know my students enjoy my classes, it will never get old hearing a student say that I am their favorite teacher, they "actually" learned somthing from me, or my class is their favorite. It makes me smile and feel that I can have an impact in young lives that can be positive. Today though, I saw one of my students crying, so I asked her if she needed to talk to me. I sat and listened, overwhelmed by what was upsetting her. The emotionally charged story she told me about her father leaving her and her mom and the ramifications it is causing in her life made me really hurt for her. I have and hope to always have an open door policy for my students that I am here if they have problems. This girl, who usually is more of a tomboy and in the popular crowd, was so broken-hearted. In that moment, I was thankful that she trusted me to listen, but I was the one who felt weak. I had no idea what to say, all I could think was that this girl should not have to be dealing with all of this at 16. All I could do was pray that God would give me the right words to say. It hit me that there will be many times in my life and career that I will hear emotional stories that I have not had to deal with in my own life, but that I need to be a comfort figure for each person. As I sit here now, I feel that I did a good job listening, but I didn't do a good job helping. I didn't know what to say, I won't always know what to say. So I sit here feeling for this student, not knowing how to help her, but hoping that what I could say to her in the moment can comfort her for a little while.
Archive for April, 2006
Lately Matt and I have been spending a lot of time, energy, and thoughts on getting ready for our big move. We started getting his trailer ready to sell and we put so much work into it. It was hard both mentally and physically but I think that I learned something from it. Working with Matt, together as a team, has really made me view our relationship in a new way. It felt great to have a common goal to work towards, and know that we both are very motivated to accomplish something. There have been things we worked on together before, but none of them seemed like this time. As we both struggled to complete the many tasks ahead of us, we had a common purpose to finish all the improvements and get the place up for sale. It is now up for sale (we are praying we can sell it fast) and looking back I feel that we have grown closer and shared an experience that we had not had before.
One of Matt's favorite sayings is "Live Fully". I occasionally give the saying some thought and try to assess how fully I am truely living my life. However, today after teaching my students I sat down to start planning for the next week and was overwhelmed by how great I felt. I had taken my students outside to get some sun and attempt to curb some of their Spring Fever. We all played games that were related to the Middle Ages Social Class system of Feudalism. It was so fun for me to watch my students be creative (while also trying to have fun) in coming up for reasons why their game of tag or four-square can relate to the days lesson. I ended up playing with the kids, running all around, tagging kids, and throwing the ball in foursquare. As I sat down to start planning, I noticed how great I felt. I had been outdoors, created a fun, interactive lesson, and both the students and myself enjoyed it. I truely felt as if in that moment I was fully alive! I was overwhelmed with this feeling, it made me crave more. So with that, I hope that as the summer weather is fast approaching I can continue to do things that make me live fully. I want to enjoy the last few months I have in this wonderful place, and take with me memories to only try and improve on to Seattle. Hopefully I will share more of these moments with you all as my journey to try and live fully continues!
Yesterday I decided it was time to tell my school that I would not be coming back next year. It was very hard, and sad to do, because I have enjoyed this job so much. I then started to look for new teaching jobs out in Seattle. It got me a little down as I found the Social Studies jobs are kinda few and far between. I hope to someday get a Masters in Special Education, but for now I am limited to Social Studies, which I love a lot too. However, I am just nervous that I will not find a job. It is such a hard thing to think about.
After a long, great but exhausting day, I think I have found a new favorite holiday: Easter. When I was growing up Easter meant having my grandparents over, opening Easter gifts and eating candy with my sister all day, really nothing more than that. I didn't give much thought to the whole day, in fact I foolishly often wondered why people even celebrated Easter. That was then, this is now. Flash forward a few years to today. Matt and I have been going to the Episcopal church in our town and it has been a unique experience. At first I was very uncomfortable and fought the whole idea of making it Matt and I's church, but after a few months I am really enjoying Sundays. In preperation for Easter they strip the sanctuary of all elaborate things, Lent becomes a time of contemplation and reflection, not celebration. It all leads up to today. I have to admit, I felt somewhat childish waiting for Easter to arrive this weekend, I was very excited. I bought Matt a beautiful Easter card, rewarded his fast from buying books with a Bookstore giftcard and a new book mark, woke up early and got Starbucks and the Sunday paper, ironed my pretty spring skirt, and decided it was going to be a great day! Well it was. I went into church not really expecting anything, but I walked away with everything. The Easter service was so wonderful and beautiful, it was truely a celebration. The Sanctuary smelled of fresh flowers, the decorations had returned, people where singing as loud as they could, there were even trumpets to help us worship. As I sat in church I was overwhelmed with a since of joy to the point that it almost made me cry. It was a huge moment for me in the fact that my faith was real today, it was confirmed that indeed I am living my life for someone more powerful than I ever imagined. It was spine-tingling. It became a new holiday!
In honor of Good Friday…
When I first made the decision to try and follow Jesus there was one powerful scene that brought up many emotions for me. It was the scene when Jesus is hung on the cross next to the criminals and first of all says "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." The amount of forgiveness Jesus showed at this painful point amazed me and overwhelmed my thoughts. In the midst of this horror he offered forgiveness and honesty. However, the second scene that had an impact me is when one of the criminals asks Jesus to remember him and Jesus states, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." I love the vision Jesus gives to the theif and those words continuely played over and over in my head during my struggle with my decision to give away my life so that I could become one who believes. It is a beautiful image for me.
Yesterday I wrote about the 3 points in a recent sermon I listened to. The second point was Shake. McManus spoke about shaking things up in our lives. People need to take risks and put thierselves out there. Now there is a naive view that a belief in God will protect you from failing. However, this cannot always be true. I think McManus rings true when he says "Are you going to fail? You betcha!!" Just because I try and live my life for and with God does not mean I will always succeed. I think this is important because I think sometimes some Christians feel that they have an immunity from failing if they have faith. There comes a certain responsibitiy to live out our faith and this includes risk taking. I can't stop thinking about the risk-journey I will be taking when we move to Seattle. It will be scary, it will be filled with risk, but will it be good? I certainly hope so!!
"For Pete's sake, if you can't trust your Supreme Court justice more than that, get a life," Supreme Court Justice Scalia
Teaching Seniors in High Schoolers American Government has been fun this past semester. We are starting our unit on the Judicial Branch, and I have enjoyed Scalia's outspoken opinions over the past few years.
Yesterday I had the oppurtunity to listen to an Erwin McManus sermon from my computer. He is leading a Chasing Daylight series in relation to the book I am currently reading. In this talk he uses a breakdown of 3 terms: Break, Shake, and Illuminate. I enjoy having phrases or other things that help me to remember aspects that I find important and this is a great example of this. He talks of breaking away from the crowd when it comes to your individual life. To fully live in God, you need to step away and form your own pursuit of life through God. He says people will often think you are crazy or out of your mind when you break tradition, or break away from what people think is normal. However, to truely follow your dreams and live in the awe of God, it is often required that we have to break away. This was relevant to my current situation because I found myself relating to what he was saying. I recently started my first real job as a teacher in Colorado. It has been absolutely wonderful. I love the school, I love my classroom, the kids, the schedule, and everything about it. I often think that it can't get much better than this. When you are content with yoru job, the world around you feels so much better. When I commited to my finace that we will soon start a joint life together, it was a commitment to sacrifice and combine our individual dreams into one. Part of this involves us leaving Colorado and moving to Seattle where he will attend Mars Hill Graduate School. Now, people think I am crazy and out of my mind to give up this seemingly perfect job. In fact, I often question myself. However, as I listened to this sermon it hit home that moving may just be my "break". I do not know what is to come, in fact I am very nervous. I have a huge passion for teaching and hope I can find with God's help another great job. This is definitely going against the grain and breaking away from society, but I do believe that good things will come, it is just a matter of not knowing yet.
In less than 3 months I will be married!! I can't believe how fast my life is moving. I try and slow down and soak in all the happenings in my life, but it is all moving so quickly. I had 2 bridal showers this past weekend, and they have now made me more excited than ever to be married. I was blessed with many great gifts to start my new life with Matt. Thank you to everyone that came and gave me gifts from their hearts. I was able to spend time with many ladies who I grew up with. It is a almost surreal to look around at all the people in the room. All the women who went were important to my life at one point or another. As I grew up these women crossed my life less and less as I found myself and new friends. However, as I sat in a chair centered perfectly near everyone at the party, I remembered how everyone had affected my life and had an influence on who I am today. It was wonderful to be flooded with memories of my past and to think about that these women helped make me the person who Matt will love today and forever.
