Back to Work

Well, here it is...... Monday morning, after a 5 day break from teaching.

I have enjoyed every minute of the time that I have had. I did not grade one paper, write one lesson plan, or hear from one disappointed student or angry parent.

Instead, the last five days have been spent just lying on the couch watching television, reading an e-book on my Kindle, cooking with family, talking with family, eating with family, and shopping with family.  It has really been FANTASTIC!

I wish I could be as happy about returning to work as those little dwarfs were in the Disney movie.....

Dopey always seemed to have a smile on his face.... even when they headed out to a busy day with their picks to dig in the mines. I may not have Grumpy's permanent scowl this morning, but I just can't bring myself to sing, "It's back to school I go."

I really don't think that my family understands. On Saturday, my daughter and I decided to tackle a few of the after Thanksgiving sales. While traveling from store to store in the car we talked about what to get for this person or that person and the conversation eventually rolled around to me. "I don't know what to get you," she said, "and don't say TIME. You say that every year." My response was, "That's because THAT is really what I want."

She can't really understand what it is like to be at work from 7 until 5 on an almost daily basis and then carry a bag full of papers home when I do leave the building. Sunday afternoons are usually spent writing lesson plans for the coming week, and, on the occasional day off, it is becoming more and more common to be asked to come in for some type of professional meeting.

Don't get me wrong..... I am very thankful to have a job that brings home a substantial paycheck on a regular basis. BUT..... I wish that job wasn't such a full time job. This is year 29 for me, and, over the years, I have seen things change. I always took home papers to grade. I always had a lesson plan rolling around in my head. I always met students and parents out in "the real world". In recent years, however, the demands on my personal time have increased. New computer programs that we are expected to learn and utilize, new trainings that we must attend, and new curriculum that we must educate ourselves about. Add to that the internet and its increased presence in education and our daily lives, and it's all enough to make me want to just flip the pause button so I can have a few minutes to breathe.

I keep telling myself that I will master the ability to have time for both my job and myself..... but I haven't figured it out quite yet....

Yes Lord............

Lately I have been feeling a bit insignificant. I am just a mother, just a wife, just a teacher. I live and serve the Lord in a small Kentucky town that is like so many others. We have paved roads, electricity, and telephone. Most of my students even own cell phones.

For so long I have thought that being of service required something extraordinary- a mission trip, giving up your home and moving, doing something that was totally out of character just because God asked.

Well, I am here to admit that I was wrong.............

Sure, I can do any of those things and they would be in service to God, but if the opportunity doesn't come my way, I can still serve him right here, right now.

A couple of years ago, I made plans to retire from teaching. My papers were filed, I had visited the retirement office several times, the school presented me with a retirement plaque, and I had cleaned my room and shared the supplies that I had stockpiled over the years. THEN...... the axe dropped. Technicalities stepped in and my dreams of sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch were shattered. As reality set in, a small voice inside me said, "God isn't finished with you yet." Even then, the message did not sink in to my brain.

Over the past year, I have done some mental calculating..... Here in Kentucky, teachers can retire after 27 years of service, though they will not get full retirement benefits. In order to maximize your retirement dollars, you must teach until age 55. For me, that would require 34 years of teaching experience.

Last year, several times, my peers and I discussed the state of education and how it was affecting us as parents, family members, and individuals. Many times I uttered these words. "I would have to teach 6 more years. I don't think I have that many left in me." 

I realize now that maybe I have been stating that sentence incorrectly the entire time. What I should have said is, "I would have to teach 6 more years. I will have to wait and see if that is what God wants."

All of this time I have been focusing on me and what I wanted...... I wanted to stop having to deal with all of the paperwork, I wanted time to do things that I want to do, I wanted to be able to go when I wanted and just LIVE. I almost hate to admit how selfish it all sounds.

I have noticed a difference this year though......

I am not as dissatisfied with my job. The paperwork still exists...... there are still those students that I have to really stand over if I want work done...... there are still the other things that demand my time and attention. Yet, for some reason, I don't feel the stress and strain that I used to feel.

I think that I have finally REALLY turned it over to God. I have finally said, YES LORD.... I am here to teach, for however long you wish. Show me when YOU are finished with this stage of my life.

With the new realization that I AM serving God I am also noticing blessings that I hadn't seen before. Tonight there was a young man who stayed after school to get some extra help with an English lesson. There was a look of gratitude on his face that I don't often see these days. There was a "Thank you" from his mother who probably wasn't used to teachers staying after work if they weren't paid for it. There are the little smiles and hugs that I am getting from a teenage daughter with whom, not that long ago, I was usually in verbal battle.

I really AM serving God..........

As a mother

As a wife

As a teacher

As a role model

For now.................. that is enough.

Lord, when YOU are ready for me to enter the next stage of life.............. show me............ tell me...........

I am ready and waiting to say.................... YES!

School's Out..... School's Out........ Well, ALMOST

This week is Teacher's Appreciation Week. Ironically, it is also the last week of our school year. As I sit here, I face only two more days with my eighth grade classes. Two more days of, "Please sit down." Two more days of, "WHY don't you have a pencil?" Two more days of teenage drama. Two more days of maintaining my sanity.

Actually, this year has not been as bad as I expected. For the MOST part, my students have really tried. I have pushed them hard and I can honestly say that the majority of them have met my expectations.

It is about this time of the year when students start asking, "Mrs. Baker, will you miss me?" My standard answer is "I don't get time to miss anyone. When I send one group out the door, another one comes in."

Because of this, it is also the time of the year when I start trying to wrap my head around a new school year, with new students, new expectations, and new units of instruction. I have always been one of those "fuddy-duddy" teachers who attends trainings in the summer, plans the first month of lessons, and comes in at least a week early to get my classroom all organized and ready.

You see, teaching was always my first choice of career. My mother kept one of those little books where she would keep my report card and student work samples and I would write things at the end of each school year: height, weight, what I would be when I grew up. When I look back through that book I see the same word written each year, "Teacher."

As I finish yet another year in my chosen career, I do have a few insights to share with anyone who might be contemplating a career in education:

• There will be bad days, those days when nothing you seem to try works. At the same time, there will be good days, the days when you will walk out the door with a smile a mile wide and a dancing lilt in your step.
• Try as you might, you will NEVER make EVERYONE happy. There is no way to completely meet the expectations of every single parent, every single student, and every single administrator. Resolve to try, but be willing to accept the fact that there will be days when you think that the whole world is dissatisfied with what you are doing.
• Teachers really DO have a lasting effect. Teaching middle school students, I have come to accept the fact that the majority of them don't have school at the top of their priority list. Let's face it, many of them don't have it in their top ten. There are a lot of students who think that my only goal in life is to find another assignment that will torture them and require some of their free time.  Give those same adolescents a few years to grow up and they will come back to thank me for what I tried to do for them. Several times a year I will have former students who stop me in the grocery store line to apologize for their behavior as a seventh or eighth grader and to thank me for trying to educate them. It just takes some time for them to realize it.

I have not been the perfect teacher, but I have tried to do what God asked in Titus 2:7.

Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity,

As I close out this school year and prepare for the new one, I ask that God would be with me and continue to help me to be the best teacher that I can be; not only one who instructs in reading and English, but serves as an example of character and a testimony of God's love.