So I listen to Mike’s sermons on the way to and from school. It kind of motivates me and gets my mind on the right track when I go into the building. So this morning I was listening to Week 3 of the Moments series and I’m trying to figure out a way to pass this… brilliance… onto my middle schoolers.
Those of you who know me know these two facts about driving: 1) I hate it. 2) I suck at it. So I’m praying that I don’t wreck as I drive down the road taking notes on my center console about how I’m going to “edumacate” these kids in life-lessons. Well they have homeroom every day for a half hour. Two of those days they have “Character Education” which most of the teachers HATE those days and just come up with busy work for the kids or make it a study hall… which I TOTALLY did at my last school. But this morning… I was inspired.
I’m contemplating doing a “Series” for my Character Ed days with my homeroom and start a continual “Appreciation” project. Each week during the class, we’re going to talk about ways that we can appreciate ourselves instead of depreciate ourselves. There will be a whole day where it’s just finances… things that have depreciation value… why they do… things that appreciate over time… things that took slight appreciation value and dropped suddenly (like beanie babies). We can predict things that we THINK will have appreciation value that is coming out. Eventually we’re going to get to ways that we can appreciate ourselves and make ourselves more valuable. This is going to require me letting go of JUST the right amount of personal stuff. Too much and they lose respect and think I’m their friend. Not enough and I’m just someone else who is telling them how terrible they are and how they should stop making mistakes.
I’m terrified… because it’s SOOO going to fail. But I’m totally going down swinging. Even if they think I’m the weird caring teacher… at least caring is in there. I’m never going to fail gracefully… but it’s like Mike was saying… people who are successful can never define failure. They just know that they HAVE had failures… they can’t explain what it actually MEANS to fail.
I’m supposed to define success. My definition is very ESPNesque… giving it all I’ve got. My former temporary roommate Haley had a sign in her bathroom saying how the day she stands before God she wants to be empty handed. She wants to say to God “I used everything You gave me.”
When I talk about wanting to teach… it’s about showing these kids… SOMETHING. I don’t know what… but I’m going to go at it with everything, knowing God will fill me up when I’ve poured it all out, and will put me back together better than I was before I broke into a million pieces. Having enough faith to give it my all.
