School is hard, but life is good.
I am still a horrible teacher. My planning is highly inadequate, my execution is awful, and my students are therefore not successful. I have been teaching these precious babies for over 2 months now and have seen very little growth. My kindergarten roommates talk about the fact that they have to teach their students how to be human because they really know nothing. Sadly, it's still the same in 7th and 8th grade. I want my students to experience the fullness of life. I want them to have choices and hopes and dreams. But they need to learn to read. And more importantly, they need to learn how to care about one another and how to respect themselves. These kids have so much potential dwelling inside of them, but there are all of these heavy layers of dust that have been piled on top of them. Sometimes the dust is a result of actions that they have chosen to make on their own, but sometimes the dust is an unavoidable consequence thrown on them from other broken people in a messy world. I don't know how to teach through the dust.
With that said, the hours between 6am and 4pm are pretty rough. But then we come home. And we love our home. Really and truly. Our house is our safe place. It is the place where our friends gather and let us feed them. Where my roommates and I dance around the house, laugh together, cry together, cook together, clean together, and pray together. The hours from 4pm-12am are the hours when I am reminded of who I am and how I have learned to live, especially over the last 4 years. I have spent so much of my last few years learning about how to live in a community. My job for the last 3 years was to foster and develop events and relationships that would lend themselves to moments of praise, vulnerability, hospitality, and grace. I was certain that I would never experience that type of community after I left APU. And while that is definitely true in many ways, I have slowly been finding ways to incorporate that life into this one. One of my favorite days occurred about 3 weeks ago when my roommates and I decided to throw an open house party. We created, printed, and hand-delivered personal invitations to our 50 closest friends, neighbors, and fellow teachers who have been a part of our crazy lives here. Most people think that the party was a "just because" type of party because it was so out of the blue. But for my roommates and me, this party was filled with the purpose of celebration. We get so bogged down with the heaviness of school that we forget the fact that we are people. We are people who have lives. And our lives are good. We want to remember that and to make sure that our friends realize it too.
These are my beautiful roommates and our favorite 88 year old neighbor, Jigger!
If I wasn't so committed to my beloved children and to this job, I think I would love to become a party planner. Or maybe just a professional dinner party hostess. We have a lot of dinner parties at our home. The food is never fancy (except that one time that Dave cooked!) and our table is much too small, but it forces us to slow down. When we eat, we are reminded that we are human. We are not the superheroes that we sometimes pretend to be. We are fragile, and we need to be nourished. It might seem easier to feed yourself or to just grab dinner from Wendy's, but I think that we are able to nourish a lot more than just our physical hunger when we can learn to cook and eat together.
I'm starting to feel more like myself here in this place. My hope and prayer now is that I will begin to feel as joyful and passionate about the hours between 6am and 4pm. I have to believe that I'll get there. It will take time to sift through all the dust, but I will not give up and I will not quit.
School is hard (but hopeful) and life is (excessively) good. even in the hard moments, i am thankful to be here. this is absolutely what i would choose.
love y'all.
No comments:
Post a Comment