I have been timidly laughing to myself as I contemplate this first post. I truly have nothing inspiring to write about, nor anything of any true importance that compels me to do so. Frankly, I just like to write. It keeps me amused. Moreover, who wouldn't want to pick their own background and font colors?
In the summer after my first semester of teaching, I now have time to contemplate a relative flurry of activity that has occurred recently in my life. In the Spring of 2010, I graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in biochemistry. In the Fall of 2010, I began graduate school at the University of Virginia (all Hokies, cue the collective gasp). This in and of itself was a major turn. By February of 2011, I was engaged to my now-husband. In December 2011, I finished graduate school. January 2012, I was hired to work at a high school. By mid-January I was married, honeymooned and moved in to our new home.
For four months I lived in a whirlwind bubble of teaching, but now it is summer. I am hoping to have locked-up and burned in the wild-fires of Colorado my initial experience of teaching. It seems it was like every other teachers' initial experiences - apocalyptically awful...maybe a slight exaggeration. I imagine the apocalypse to far overshadow the awfulness of my first year of teaching.
It is summer, but it took me nearly a month to feel as such. There was no immediate sigh of relief, and I have learned after many years of school that it is difficult to decompress - I'll never quite understand why. Why can't one immediately begin to relax? How ridiculous is that? Talk about wasted time.
I'm not sure how I'll use this blog. Although we all have opinions of some sort, mine often are kept silent and for no particular reason. Often, it seems worthless for me to voice the opinions I have. I'm not one for verbal or written conflict, so I remain quite hushed. Or, perhaps I am more opinionated than I think and really don't care to listen too many viewpoints (please don't take this too seriously).
I can't state yet what the purpose of this blog will be; it is not yet known, and I don't care to place bounds on it just yet. For now, I shall reflect. On teaching.
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Building up to my first thought...
Many have spoken to me about the envy of having a summer break. Understandable, yes. For one, I truly have no idea as of yet what it is like to be without one. Going directly from school to teaching school, I remain spoiled in that arena. However, I am witness to the fact that a teacher could quite literally spontaneously combust without one. I'd be willing to argue that the demands are so great and the pay so little, that a summer break is some bizarre form of pity-driven compensation. I will take my break, if you will take the fact that I do not teach for that benefit.
It also seems universal to cringe when I mention that I teach high school students chemistry. Or, I get the wide-eyed, nod-of-the-head, can-I-get-an-amen response as if somehow, I am nobly waging some sort of holy war in the schools. Comments such as, "We sure need good teachers in the public schools," or, "Good for you," pour out of the mouths of many I encounter. What a struggle to not raise my eyebrows in bewilderment.
...everyone has it all wrong.
What I do has not been noble, and the public schools are not messed up for the reasons often-cited.
First, I ain't got nothing noble about me. I am a sinner, and that is all there is to it. Each day, I wake up and often choose to bathe myself in a shower of selfishness. Choosing myself over others. Choosing myself over God, over husband, and over the benefit of those around me. Much of what I do is driven by my desire for comfort and predictability. Being a teacher does not begin to erase that. It does not absolve me of my deep pool of errors that I swim in. No good deeds are untainted by this selfishness. On this side of heaven, I will continue to fight, succumb to, and fleetingly overcome the desires of my flesh. Until then, I hope no one ever assumes that putting on the job of teacher should somehow be revered, pitied or admired.
As for the second, small thought: the public schools are "messed up" for a very simple reason. Everyone else is a sinner, too. We are all ignoble. Sorry, everyone. Even our best efforts, or at least mine, are intertwined with ill-gotten motives.
This grieves me (to only a certain extent...more to come). I sin. Others sin. My students walk in the door, and by looking into their eyes and seeing their posture it is evident that they, too, are quite broken. They have parents split apart. They don't know when they will get nutritious food. They have so many siblings that, when old enough, their parents have to essentially forget them. Parents have been misdirected by their own life circumstances in a way that renders them completely disabled in the arena of caring.
Overnight, I acquired 105 students. I felt the weight of this responsibility and the complete void of my own practical knowledge about what to do with them (even after a Masters degree). What a combination of feelings! The pain in my own experience combined with the pain I felt in student's lives opened up my eyes to the extremely helpless situation we are all in. We live in a increasingly deep, selfish pit that is dug deeper by our own insecurities.
It is imperative to gain perspective on this situation - at least it is for me. Teaching is not the only occupation in life that illuminates this major problem. This is universal. This is pervasive.
So, here it is...
I can do no good. If I cannot do such, who can?
Paul writes in his letter to the Phillipians (2:12-13)
"Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed- not only in my presence but now much more in my absence - continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose."
In Galations 5:16-18, 22-26 it is written:
"So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law...But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindess, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things, there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other."
Romans 5: 1-5:
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance , character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who he has given to us.
And I could go on, but what do I really mean? I do no good. It is only the fruit of the Holy Spirit in me, given by God through Jesus Christ, that my body does any good. It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that God can act in and through me according to his good purpose. I have no good purpose other than to serve him.
The hope in this world is not better teachers, better parents, or better schools. The only hope is Jesus. He shed his blood, reduced himself to death on a cross, and overcame the power of sin and death for the world. By taking on the selfish, prideful sins of me, of my class, and of the world, he redeemed mankind. This is the only hope that will eternally not disappoint.
"Good" teachers, "good" schools, "good" parents. They will all fail. They will all dissipate. They will all disappoint. They will all remain in battle with their own conflicting desires.
They will all pale in comparison to the glory of God and dissolve in his light. Jesus's death on the cross is all that matters.
And finally in Ephesians 1:15-20:
"I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms..."
I hope that Christ's face, which shines before me is the only thing in my life that will ever get an approving nod of the head, and that his Word will ring true in everyone's life. He does not disappoint.
