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.

I've been teaching for almost two weeks now. I don't know how else to say it, except with the cliche "I love it." I really do, and I'm surprised. I remember how for weeks and weeks (I guess it's really months and months) leading up to this, I would tell people about my decision to go back to DGS with a martyr's sigh - God called, what can I say? I'm sure there will be joy offering myself up as a living sacrifice. (And I pictured this almost in literal terms... that DGS would kill some part of me.) But so far, I haven't cried yet, I haven't gotten angry yet, and I don't hate the students. Wow. God is really generous to me. I've started to wonder if this is my life calling (albeit reluctantly... there is so little glamour in being a teacher). I get a little thrill - the kind of thrill I would get as a kid in the summer when I think up some new, fun project like planting a little flower bed or making a picture book - every time I come up with an idea for a discussion topic or class activity. I find myself thinking about material for class when I'm reading magazines, watching TV, looking at ads in the MTR, or observing people on the street. I enjoy coming up with lesson plans and thinking about ways to push the girls forward. Oh but the best part is definitely when I'm with the students. Maybe I have fault memory, but I'm quite confident that DGS girls have become nicer since my days there. They were a bit shy at first, but after the first few days of introductions, I would walk into a classroom, and see these bright young faces smiling at me. When did I ever smile at a teacher in a classroom? And when I try to tell stories in class, I can't help but feel flattered when they listen attentively, their eyes following me. Why should they care about my experiences? What has the Lord given me? More and more, I am realizing the great responsibility that comes with a captive and willing audience. I can tell jokes or feed them from me to try to make them like me more, or I can give them what comes from the Lord. It's been only two weeks, and I realize how incredibly easy it is to get caught up with filling lesson time with fun activities and getting through the syllabus, forgetting about the eternal things. How can I give them the best? "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." - Acts 3:6 "If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, hiswork will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it tolight. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test thequality of each man's work." - 1 Corinthians 3:12-13 I want to build with gold, with the power in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Next week I will start meeting up with the girls in my class (the class for whom I'm the Form Teacher) one-on-one. It feels a little like Stint, in an exciting way. I'm eager.

As I've been preparing for the Bridging Program, I've started going through books of poems again, and it's bringing back fond memories. Who knew lesson planning could be so fun?

One book in particular - Elizabeth Bishop: The Complete Poems: 1927-1979 - transported me back to my teenage years when reading and writing poetry left me both wonder-filled and famished. I remember consuming the words and naively wanting the same complexity of anger, sorrow, and softness... myself tinkering with words and imagining a life where your art and your life would be a cause of pain.

That was my love then. And so this book meant a lot to me, because it was part of a gift Mom got for me during a trip to the States. The other book was Robert Frost's complete anthology. I loved it. I didn't ask for it, I don't think, but Mom, out of her own initiative, caught this passion in me, and brought me back these books.

Now, I've never been patient, so I never ended up carefully reading through these books, but I remember just enjoying possessing them. Funny girl. Just having them, I guess, made me feel more like a legitimate poet. Of course, I never was one. But I liked feeling like one, and I liked being perceived as one. Perhaps that is why God had to take it from me - I was choosing what was not even second-best.

Still, this book remains a reminder of Mom's thoughtfulness. I don't give her enough credit for it I think... but there were moments growing up when she was thoughtful, sensitive, and even sentimental. She was one to nurture my dreams and encourage what she saw as talent. Well, I'm thankful for the mother I have.

And today I came across a poem Elizabeth Bishop wrote at age 16, about a tree. It captures - though only to a degree - my sentiments as a kindergarten-er befriending the Flame of the Forest outside my window on Broadcast Drive. (Strange how, last year, when I visited, I was shoo-ed away as a tresspasser from what was once my childhood home.)



To a Tree

Oh, tree outside my window, we are kin,
For you ask nothing of a friend but this:
To lean against the window and peer in
And watch me move about! Sufficient bliss

For me, who stand behind its framework stout,
Full of my tiny tragedies and grotesque grieves,
To lean against the window and peer out,
Admiring infinites'mal leaves.