Hello, My Name Is...

In December, I shared what God was teaching me through a 21-day detox from negative thinking. I completed two cycles to combat these deeply entrenched lies: "I'm not good enough" and "I can't." Throughout my Christmas break, I saturated myself with Scripture, sermons, and positive meditations, and also caught up on sleep and reading for pleasure.

When school resumed in January, I felt much better able to deal with the stresses and to look for the joy in each day. Though I still had mild nerves at times, I felt much more stable in my emotions than ever before.

With each class, I shared the story of how God had given me a new name for 2019. First, I told them how God had given me the name of Beloved when I was going through my divorce, at a time when I felt that my name was Forsaken. After I'd explained what beloved means, I asked whether they thought receiving that name had made all my hurts go away.

"No," they replied.

"You're right," I said. "Even though knowing that I was Beloved helped start my healing, it took a very long time for me to grow into that name. After a few years, though, Beloved became my identity. I hope you have noticed that I am a person who loves very passionately. The reason I can do that is because I know that I myself am richly loved, and I have plenty of love to share. In fact, that's the biggest part of why I wanted to become a teacher again." 

I went on to explain how anxiety over the challenges of teaching had given me another false name: Fearful. "Here at work, what do you think I fear most?" I asked.

The first class I shared this with stared at me mutely, probably because one of our assistant principals was in the room, sitting next to one of my most challenging students. After a few moments of awkward silence, Mr. K spoke up. "You're afraid you will fail your students," he guessed. "You're afraid you won't be able to help them learn." 

"Exactly!" I answered. "It's not the misbehavior or the disrespect that I fear, it's the worry of not being enough, of not meeting my students' needs."

Mr. K and the kids waited expectantly. 

"Over break, I asked God for a new name, just like the time when he called me Beloved. I figured it would be the antonym of Fearful.... What words are the opposite of Fearful?"

This time, they weren't afraid to speak up. 

"Fearless." 

"Brave?"

"Courageous?" 

I smiled. "I thought of all of those and more, but none of them seemed to fit. The name that finally came to me at first didn't seem to be an antonym for Fearful."

I held up a drawing that I'd made of a name badge. 

I then explained, "You can be very brave even though you still feel quite fearful. Real courage is being afraid to do something and doing it anyway. It's different when you feel joyful. That's when the fear fades away even though you're facing all of the same challenges. You see beyond the fear to the joy ahead of you. I'm sure it will take a long time for me to grow into my new name, but I believe 2019 is my year for joy. Through my struggles with teaching, God is teaching me that joy doesn't come from my circumstances. One day, when people look at me, they are going to see a woman who finds joy in everything she does." 

I challenged my students to make their own name badge drawings. "Who do you want to become in the new year?" I asked.

They brainstormed for a few minutes, but they didn't come up with much. Since it had taken a couple of weeks for God to give me the name Joyful, I figured they would need more time, too. I hope that some of them will find a new name.

Since then, several of them have honored my request to remind me of my new name. When they see that frustration is stealing my joy, they ask, "Ms. B, what's your name?" 

I take that opportunity to pause and focus on my reasons for joy. For example, I like to say, "I have joy because God is making me fruitful in the land of my affliction." Sometimes, I elaborate on the fruit of my struggles: love, joy, patience, peace, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control. 

How about you? What false name have you taken on? What true name do you want to take on this year? 

A Seed of Light

I don't have time to write tonight, but I feel that I must. 

The last three or four weeks have been exceedingly difficult for me. We are implementing a new instructional model that I believe in, but actually putting it into practice has been rough. In theory, most of the class will be reading independently and responding in their journals while I focus on guided reading with a small group.

The reading part is getting better, for the most part. We started several weeks ago with 20 minutes of reading followed by whole-group instruction. That was a battle because over half of my students profess to hate reading. Every day, they'd say, "We're reading again? Why do we have to read every day?"

Each day, I calmly repeated, "This is reading class. That's what we do. You can't get better at reading without reading."

Good Times With a Hall Walker

I have three or four teaching stories saved up, and I hope to share them all over Thanksgiving break (thank you, Jesus!), in chronological order. Here's the first....

Remember Julia*, the student who was overwhelmed by a grade-level reading comprehension test? She continues to drive me batty on a daily basis in class, yet our relationship has been growing over the last few weeks. She came in for tutoring again about three weeks back; I'd arranged it with her mother in order to make up for the independent reading and response that she'd refused to do during class.

I'd expected a surly attitude, but she was surprisingly cheerful as we waited for the campus to clear after the final bell and then strolled to the cafeteria for snacks. I think she was happy to get the undivided attention that she clearly craves. We chatted easily about the day, and about the nearly empty box of donuts that she'd spotted on top of a cabinet in my room. Those had been a reward for the classes that behaved for the substitute when I had jury duty. Julia's class, the last period of the day, had definitely not earned them.

"There are a few donuts left," I said. "Would you like one?"

She nodded vigorously, and then she asked if there were any chocolate ones.

"No, I'm sorry. Only plain glazed."

She pursed her lips for a moment and then grinned. "That's okay. I'll still eat one."

"Great! I'll eat one with you."

So Proud of You

A few weeks back, one of my struggling readers stayed after school for a behavior conference. Julia* and I had a relaxed conversation while she helped me clean graffiti off the desks.

"Tell me how it is for you in my class," I said. "I know you don't like it. What's going on?"

"Well..." she said, hesitating as she scrubbed off a SnapChat user name.

"Go ahead," I urged. "Be honest."

"Well, usually I'm just bored. I don't get what we're doing. Sometimes I want to try, but it's too hard. And then my friends tell me to do things to make them laugh, so..."

"So you do things to keep them entertained?"

"Yeah."

I Love You Even Then

Please forgive my long silence now that school has started. What a year it has been so far! There have been so many blog-worthy moments, but no time to write about them. I've lost track of the days I've gone home wanting to quit, but there have been many other days that made my heart sing. Yesterday was one of the latter, and I've decided that grading papers can wait. 

I thought this year would be easier than my first year because I'd be teaching the same subject and could use some of the same lesson plans. Plus, I learned a lot from my mistakes last year, and I planned to start the year off on the right foot this time.

There was only one problem. Our students came to seventh grade reading at much lower levels than last year; our average student reads at the fourth-grade level, and some of them read at the second-grade level. It only took a few weeks to realize that last year's model was not serving our students. There is no point asking students who cannot read a passage questions about point of view, setting, and author's purpose.

What these students really need is time to actually read. As I've told them all year long, the only way to get better at reading is reading. But there are two problems with that: 1) The ones who need it most despise reading, and we can't force them to do it. They will use any diversionary tactic to avoid reading and to prevent their classmates from reading, too. 2) We are a middle school. We don't have books on the second- and third-grade level. [Our principal just now obtained funding to provide us with leveled libraries for our classrooms, as well as a consultant to help us implement a reading workshop approach. Hallelujah!]

For the last two weeks, I've devoted over half of my class time to silent reading--in theory. But a handful of students have made that time both unfruitful and highly stressful, at least for me. Wednesday was the low point. On the advice of an administrator who has been helping with my most challenging class, I sent every disruptive student to the office and set up parent conferences. Guess how many I sent out in one period? Six. Six! With all of that drama, only the most determined readers could have read anything.

Sometimes You Just Need to Give Up... But Don't Give In

This past Friday, I administered final exams to my last three classes and headed out around 1:30 to pick up Allyson and her friend Kambry for our long awaited annual camping trip. Yes, I realize it's a little crazy to plan a camping trip for June 1 in Texas, but I knew I could enjoy it much better while unencumbered by teaching responsibilities. Besides, we'd gone a week later the previous year, and the temperature was fine.

This time, my niece Hillary was the first to arrive at Lake Ray Roberts, and she'd staked out a site right on the water's edge. For the third year in a row, I'd reserved a primitive campsite with neither water nor electricity, and we had to carry our gear down a dirt and gravel path. As the four of us carried in the first load, Allyson and I reminisced about our first visit to this same state park two years earlier.

Choose Love

Don't you love the way God works in such mysterious ways? I especially love it when He answers prayers in ways that I could never have dreamed up. 

On a Thursday about six weeks ago, I hosted our monthly student prayer meeting. Only two kids showed up, plus one more who was actually there for a behavior issue but took me up on the offer to stay for prayer rather than coming back the next day for a conference. All three boys were from the same class, my second hardest class at that moment.

I took advantage of the opportunity to talk and pray about the issues we were struggling with: mainly just the rude, obnoxious behavior--and constant projectile throwing--that you might expect from a class of 12 seventh-grade boys and 6 seventh-grade girls.

I prayed that God would amaze us with the way He would turn around our class. "Has God ever amazed you?" I asked my fellow prayer warriors. They all shrugged shyly, and then one shared a story of surviving a near drowning.

I shared one of my favorite stories, the time when God astounded me by delivering the same message through a phone call and an anonymous gift that came in the mail that same day:

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. (Deuteronomy 31:6)

"Wow, miss!" they said when I'd finished my story.

"You just wait!" I said. "Just wait and watch what God will do. He's going to amaze us."

The Old Job Was Never This Fun

It's been a good week, our second one reading The Hunger Games. The last three days were a little chaotic, but I was proud of myself for trying something new that I had read about in an article. I divided my classes into six groups and put them through rotations of reading, blogging, and small group discussion. A lot of the time, the reading groups take so long to settle down and start their audio that they can't finish an 18-minute chapter in 22 minutes. And the bloggers have been writing mostly one-sentence posts so far, or even sentence fragments. But some of the discussions have helped me remember why I dreamed of being an English teacher--in those magical moments when the "self-directed" groups are actually self directing, and I'm able supervise the discussion groups as per my lesson plan.

It's so fun to hear their thoughts, and to help them connect a really dramatic story to their own lives. It's also fun to ask them about the shocking parts that many of them somehow missed. For example, when I ask them why Katniss isn't embarrassed to be naked in front of the prep team, several pairs of eyes open wide. "What?? When was she naked?" [For the record, it's not an obscene book. I promise.]

"It doesn't pay to get off task," I answer. "You might miss the really good parts."

The best part of my day is when some of my lowest performers step up as discussion leaders, sharing some perceptive views, or when a painfully shy student finds her voice. If I ever get to meet Suzanne Collins, I just might give her a kiss.

Not So Bad After All

Okay, so I ought to be grading papers, or at least doing the dishes. But I just have to tell you about my day yesterday....

It all started when my eyes fluttered open in the early light of morning, instead of the darkness before dawn. With a gasp, I rolled out of bed and squinted at the clock. 7:23. Not too bad. If you're going to oversleep, 23 minutes is the way to go.

I rushed to Allyson's room, where she was lying sound asleep under the glow of the overhead light. Her alarm had gone off, but she'd been seduced back to sleep. "Get up, Allyson!" I shouted. "I overslept. It's 7:23."

She popped out of bed almost as quickly as I had. "I'm going to be late for school," she said.

"Not necessarily. Just pull on your clothes and brush your teeth. We gotta go!"

Captured

Oh, I've missed you all! Are you ready for a few teaching stories? For today, I think I'll just tell two or three.

I'm already halfway through my first year back to teaching. What a ride it has been! It's every bit as hard as I remember it being the first time around, 20 years ago. Maybe even harder. But it's also infinitely sweeter. I have been very intentional about forming relationships, and that makes a powerful difference in how my students and I respond to one another.

At the beginning of the year, my new colleagues and I took a two-day course on classroom management called "Capturing Kids' Hearts." This amazing program gave me practical tools to accomplish the goals I had already set for myself. I was so excited to put them into practice. This year I would truly capture their hearts. I would have the opportunity to speak life to students who desperately needed to hear that they mattered, to know that they were loved.

During the Honeymoon Phase, all of those dreams seemed to be coming true. I was absolutely delighted with my students, and the feeling was mutual. Doing what God made me to do felt exhilarating, and I wondered why I'd waited so long to come back.

Magnificent

I just finished the 11th week of the first semester. Time goes by so fast that it makes me dizzy. Of course I have stacks of stories to tell you about teaching, but I think I will save most of them for Thanksgiving week--only two weeks away! Tonight I want to tell you what God's been teaching me lately. 

During one of our frequent nighttime prayers a few weeks back, my Chinese roommate, Sophie, asked me to pray that God would give me laughter. (It's a struggle for her to pray in English, so she usually asks me to pray for us both.)

"Oh, yes," I agreed. "Laughter is exactly what I need. I'm always so serious, especially with so many responsibilities as a teacher."

So we prayed for laughter, and I thanked God that I would surely be seeing the funny side of life in the coming weeks.

[Oh goodness, just realized I only thought about telling you about Sophie. Will have to save that story for another night, though.]

There certainly have been funny moments at school, like the time I asked my toughest class if they'd laugh at me for wearing exactly the same outfit two days in a row. It would be Black-Out day the next day, but I'd inadvertently worn all black on this day; a sweet colleague had brought me a black T-shirt with a wolf on it that morning so that we could be twins for Twin Day. My students admitted that they might laugh a little, but they said I should go ahead and wear the same clothes as long as I went home and washed them first.

Blessed One

I can't believe I'm halfway through the fourth week of school already. Then again, in some ways it seems like it's been longer than that. Just like last semester, teaching has been a roller coaster. I've been treasuring up so many stories in my heart to share with you, but tonight I (sort of) have time for just an overview and one story.

Here are the pros:

• I still love my kids. All of them. Even the tough class. Even the ones who get on my last nerve. God has knit my heart together with theirs. 
• I have the most supportive colleagues imaginable. They help me, check on me, pray with me, laugh with me, and cry with me. 
• We have two weekly prayer meetings, both on Wednesday (AM and PM). I go to both, with bells on. Today we waged spiritual warfare after work. We spoke prophetically over our students, teachers, and leadership. We claimed our school for the kingdom of light, and we rejoiced that "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." We recognize that the enemy is fighting us on many fronts, but we know the battle is God's and the victory is ours. We expect glorious things at our campus this year. 
• When I accepted this job, I was prepared to love my 130 students. What I never considered is that many of them would love me back. Already, I have many students who greet me with wide smiles (or shy ones), fist bumps (or elbow bumps when their hands are wet after rushing out of the bathroom), and warm hugs. A few of them visit my classroom multiple times a day, and I always tell them I need a hug. 
• When I get frustrated, my students remind me that I am blessed, just as I asked them to on our first day. I've also overheard them calling each other blessed.

Had to buy this shirt. My kids love it.
I've even heard them telling other kids about it.

Eye Has Not Seen

I wish I had time to tell you all the incredible, glorious things that have happened with my new job in the last several weeks. The truth is, I should not be blogging at all because I'm in the crazy crunch time before the first day of school this Monday. But I just have to share my joy with you. So for once, I'll keep it short. (Really!) 

Remember how crushed I was when I didn't get a job at the high school where I taught last semester? God had given me an assurance that His plan for me was so much better than what I wanted for myself. In my last entry I shared the beautiful story of the job He dropped in my lap. That was only the beginning.

From Tears to Laughter

Two weeks ago yesterday, I fell into some serious doubts about my career change. The prior week, I'd had my third rejection, and I'd taken this last one very hard. It was supposed to be my best shot at getting a teaching contract because I was interviewing for a position at the high school where I taught freshman English last semester. It had been weeks since the interview; both the principal and the assistant principal who'd interviewed me had resigned, and the new administration wanted to be involved in all hiring decisions.

After introducing myself to the new assistant principal, I'd been anxiously awaiting a call. One evening, as I sat hugging my knees in the bathtub, I whispered to God, "You know, if you could give me this job... Well, of course you could... Anyway, you know it's the desire of my heart to work there. I love the kids. I love the teachers. I love the building. I know you delight in giving me the desires of my heart, and I really, really want to work there."

I rested my forehead against my knees and sighed deeply. "Even so, not my will, but yours, Lord. I trust you to put me exactly where you want me."

Hope That Doesn't Disappoint

I've missed you guys so much! I've had even more stories stacked up in my head than usual, but lacked the time or energy to write them....

I finished my 12-week teaching assignment on May 8. Overall, it was a very positive experience, though I did get discouraged and overwhelmed in the middle of it. Ultimately I learned to relax and accept my students--and myself--for who they were rather than expecting them to adhere to unrealistic standards. I tried to model grace and then to ask for grace when I made my own mistakes. I formed strong bonds with many of my students, and they are my biggest cheerleaders when it comes to the prospect of working at their school in the fall. I did interview for the single open position, but then they got a new principal and then a new assistant principal, so everything is still up in the air.

I spent the last three weeks of school doing one-day sub jobs at various middle schools and high schools across two districts. I had a few adventures that I never had time to tell you about, and mostly enjoyed myself. I was surprised to find that I quite enjoy middle schoolers, and I think I would be just as happy teaching them as I would be teaching high schoolers. I also found that there are many, many schools where I'd feel honored to work and where I would be welcomed warmly by the students and staff.

Don't Miss the Open Doors

I can't believe I only have four weeks left of my 12-week teaching assignment. What a roller coaster it has been. The highs are so high, and the lows... abysmal.

Although my freshmen have a staggering capacity for cooking up all manner of mischief, and some days they nearly drive me to drink, it's typically not their behavior that sometimes tempts me to go back to my old, cushy job. No, it's all the other stuff: the constant grind of prepping for two vastly different audiences (both in age and ability level), never catching up with grading, despairing of ever getting the stacks of graded essays filed in their portfolios, and playing Russian Roulette with printing last-minute copies on the two machines (shared by 120 teachers) that literally break two to three times per week, sometimes at the same time.

On the Select Team

I'm five weeks into my long-term subbing assignment, teaching 9th- and 11th-grade English. I've been saving up so many stories for you that I don't even know where to begin. I guess at the beginning....

My feelings about myself as a teacher have followed the same trajectory as they did the first time I started teaching, over 20 years ago. The first couple of weeks were glorious. I loved my kids, and they loved me. I was elated at how easy and fun it was to engage them, and I felt that I was doing what I was made to do, like a horse running or an eagle soaring.

After a couple more weeks slipped by, harsh reality set in as the honeymoon faded. This is a really, really hard job. All day, every day, I had to juggle the responsibilities and interruptions, the planning, the grading, the challenges of classroom management. And I had to do all of this with a smile on my face, preferably with my sense of humor intact. I went home utterly exhausted each night, too keyed up to sleep soundly.

Yes! So Blessed

Two weeks ago yesterday, I embarked on a journey I'd been anticipating--and often fearing--for over a year. I quit my very good job as a training developer and signed on for a 12-week substitute teaching assignment, teaching 9th- and 11th-grade English.

Words can't describe the nervousness I felt on that first day, but underneath all that I knew that God was with me. I knew that I could never be enough for these 80 children, but I felt a deep assurance that the Holy Spirit would equip me for this purpose that He has called me to.

A Hope Not Seen

Remember how afraid I was a few weeks ago about starting to substitute teach? I'm not even sure when it happened, but recently I realized that subbing has become a delight. Once or twice a week, I step into the unknown with that familiar flip of nerves that I felt in my belly every morning as a 7th-grade Reading teacher: What challenges will I face today? But the unease is tempered by an exhilarating sense of possibility: What children and teachers will I connect with today?

Probably the best thing to come out of subbing is the opportunity to observe other teachers when I have a planning period free. When it first occurred to me to use my free time this way, I hesitated to request it, but not one teacher has turned me down. They've graciously welcomed me into the most mundane of daily routines and even into their most challenging classes, either when nothing exciting was happening, or when too much excitement was happening.

What I've learned is that other teachers struggle. Other teachers are ordinary just like me. And despite all the stress and the challenges, they love their jobs! Better still, all their hard work is making a difference, because they are loving and being loved.

Guard the Door

In my last entry, I described my fears about taking the next step in my teaching journey: starting to substitute teach. After sharing the whole story with you, I ended up sleeping well and feeling well prepared for my first assignment, which turned out to be sixth-grade Reading.

After misplacing the rosters and finding them in the staff bathroom just before the bell rang, I recovered my composure, and the day got off to a fairly smooth start. Thankfully, my first period had a Special Ed aide who was able to show me not only how to turn on the document viewer but also what a document viewer is. Whew!

And then the fun began. I enjoyed doing a bit of teaching as I introduced the assignment on the prefix "post." Everything came back to me, and it felt like I'd never left the field. The kids were well engaged, and I was able to manage a few minor discipline issues using proximity; when someone started to get off task, I simply stood next to him and smiled kindly.

Mr. B. and I made a great team as we circulated among the groups, gave pointers, and answered questions. At the end of the period, he asked what subject I had taught before.

"Reading," I replied.

"I can tell," he said. I beamed.

Things got a little rougher in the afternoon. For one thing, my feet were screaming. During second period, the middle toes on both of my feet had twisted into charlie horses, and I'd had no choice but to walk on them for hours. Have you ever noticed how much harder it is to be cheerful and patient when your feet are killing you?