I've taught for a month now. Though it's gotten busier (and will only get busier), I still love teaching. Here are three things that I've been thinking about.

Boredom
Anastasia prepped me on this - the monotony that can plague a teacher's life. So far it hasn't been too bad - I try to stick in fun stuff in the lessons outside of the set texts and grammar drills and listening exercises, like hangman or forced choice activities or watching movies or sharing songs.

But it really gets to me when I'm doing the marking. I'm not sure how math teachers do it... surely going through the same problems 70 times is worse than marking 70 reading comprehension exercises. But maybe they have more fun? Who knows.

Compositions are still fine, because they're all different (even though they take ages to go through). Grammar exercises are mindless, but I like mindless tasks. It's the reading comprehensions and short-answer exercises that get to me. They're not mindless, but the answers are all very similar.... and so I start looking for snacks to munch on or for ways to procrastinate.

How do some teachers do it for 10, 20 years? They must have built up a lot of character.

And why do I think I need so much variety and excitement in my life?


Winning
There have been times when students have given me attitude and my first impulse was to humiliate them in front of the class in some way. I can't say I'm too shocked with myself - I know there is that spiteful, vengeful piece in me. I want to have the last say, I want to win, and I want to come out on top, be the one in control, have power over the other person.

One day in class, earlier on in the semester, a girl would not stop talking to the girls next to her, even when they did not respond to her.

I had paused twice for her to stop talking already, and it was the third time.

I called on her to answer a question. She's a bright girl, and she stood up and gave a half-coherent answer. She sat down.

Ten seconds later, she was talking again.

I called her out and said, "____, do you have something to share with the class?" Everyone looked at her.

She had on her usual incredulous half-smile.

"No." At least she looked a little embarrassed.

At the end of the class, when we said goodbye to each other, she turned her head away and did not join in with the rest of the class. Part of me wanted to make her say it properly, but then I remembered being that age, and all the strange and strained emotions that come along with it. So I let it go, but I felt I had let that girl win.

Should I have disciplined her? Would I have done it for the wrong reasons? Is it better to build up a relationship with the girls first so that they won't turn away from me as they have turned away from so many other teachers who had humiliated them in one way or another? What would be the loving thing to do?

Sometimes I don't even have time to think about these questions. And at the end of some days, I wonder if I'm really too young to teach... every day I spend three or four hours with thirteen, fourteen, fifteen-year-olds, and I affect their days and weeks in some measure. I may be passing on good values or bad values, I may setting a good example or a bad one, I may have been condescending, or unfair, or inconsistent, or presumptuous - without realizing that I'm doing these things.

Which leads me to...


The more important lessons (and The Most Important Lesson)

It's become very easy to focus all my thoughts and time on coming up with a good lesson plan - something that will thrill, something that will solidify skills, something that will engage the students for 50 minutes. I think about how to polish up grammar, how the girls can be groomed to be brilliant writers, how the older girls can do well in the public exams.

And so it's become very easy to forget about why God called me to be a teacher, why He brought me back to this school in the first place.

In the course of my seventeen lessons each week, I'm sure to have passed on some knowledge, said something that will stick in their heads for a few months, and given them some exercises that can help review, sharpen, or even inspire. And I'm also sure to have missed something, made some logistical blunder, spelled something wrong on a worksheet, and dealt with a disciplinary issue in a hasty manner.

I'm giving the girls some good stuff mixed some bad stuff. And I keeping the best from them?

Of course it's important that the girls learn proper grammar and spelling, and it would wonderful for them to come to enjoy reading and writing. But at the end of the day, it's much more important for them to learn honesty, humility, and compassion. It's more important that they learn to treat each other and their teachers with respect, that they understand the value of a kind word, that they develop that courage to stand up for a girl being bullied, that they refuse to cheat or copy homework or lie about work undone.

But most of all, it's important that they come to know and love Jesus.

On my busy days, I need to be reminded of that.