Saturday, August 15, 2009

Back to School Lesson

If you are a teacher than you know that the summer can be one of the greatest perks that comes with being a teacher. As with everything in life, though being a teacher also has some not so desirable attributes. One of those being the fact that as a teacher (at least in elementary) we have no say what or where we teach. Our administrators are free to move us around as they please and see fit.

Just a few days ago, I discovered that I had been promoted to 2nd grade (pun intended). You see for the past three years I have taught first grade and I was feeling pretty comfortable there. I got along fine with everyone, knew the curriculum and had my own little classroom. Sadly, for me all that would come to an end. As it turns out my classroom would be moved to an arena upstairs where I would now be sharing a room with another teacher and her students. If you are not familiar with an arena setting, picture a huge room with no door divided with a bookshelf and one teacher at each end attempting to teach simultaneously. I speak from experience when I say that it is not the best environment for the little ones who have an average attention span of 5 - 12 minutes. Basically, it feels like I am starting from scratch.

So last night at youth group, as is the custom, we went around a circle giving thanks for things God has done in our life. The only thing I could think of and said was that at this moment it was hard for me to give thanks because I had been moved from the grade I loved teaching and taken away from all of the people I knew and felt comfortable with (my first grade level team) but I also knew that God's word tells us to give thanks in ALL occasions. Despite the move, I was grateful that I had a job.

Isn't the enemy clever? He tries to get us to focus on the little things to distract us from living an abundant life full of joy. He does it in our marriages, in our families, in our churches and with our jobs. So today I ask you, "Can you identify one situation or area in your life that maybe has you down in the dumps?" Now I encourage you to try to pinpoint at least one thing that you can give thanks for. I promise that it is there. You just have to look for it and sometimes you may need help from an outsider to help you see it. Ask God to give you his perspective of the situation and allow you to see things through his lenses.


(Part of the first grade team. From left to right: Ms. Maloney, Mrs. Quigley, Ms. Lozada, Mrs. Lara-Rodriguez, me and Ms. Larson)

2 comments:

Danielle said...

I think you're gonna do great in second grade no matter the difficulties! I had tons of fun helping out! :)

EmCee said...

Hope today wasn't too bad!!! :O)