Reflections of a First-Year Teacher

What a whirlwind!

First, thank you to each and every one of you who has been praying for me this year as I embarked on my first-year teacher journey. I would not have maintained my physical, emotional, and mental states without those prayers.

Friday was graduation, which Don, Patty, and Andrew were able to come down for, a true joy! The keynote speaker was Billy Mills, the 1964 Olympic gold medalist in the 10,000-meter run. Mills is the only American to have ever won the gold in that race, and travels the country as a motivational speaker.

The premise of Mills' message was perseverance and perspective, two topics I have hit on with my students all year, but two topics I feel God has impressed on my heart this year as well.

When students wanted to give up- especially my seniors- I would write one word on my board: persevere. I told them I understood the feeling of wanting to give up. With graduate school this first year of teaching, I must admit, I wanted to give up often, but prize was so alluring. This year has been a constant learning process, for me and my students. Life is not easy, but it's worth pressing on.

Mills also talked quite a bit about perspective. He is a Native American, and has dealt with many poor perspectives from coaches, teammates, fans, and peers. But he walked on.

Perspective is a common theme of literature. For one of the creative writing topics my seniors had to write a monster story, but from the monster's perspective, which often changes the story.

My perspective of these students, this valley, education as a student, and now as a teacher, have all shifted greatly these last nine months.

And I can't help but see God as the adhesive agent to all of it.

Without him, all things fall apart. Perspective doesn't matter, and life simply buckles.

I feel like I've gotten very old in this last year. In fact, Friday right before graduation, Josh pulled my first gray hair. I sure hope my wisdom from these last weeks and months didn't come out with it! Gray hairs and all, I love teaching. I couldn't imagine doing anything else.

To capture the true feeling of my moment, I tried to snap a picture. I observed many teacher-attitudes today. One teacher was dancing, one was laughing from pure hpyeractivity, one was (I'm quite certain) hung over, one was sad as he was retiring, and one was just cranky. Emotions ran the full gambit.

My mood?

Contentment. Joy. Stillness. Peace.

Can you tell?

Finally The Ruler of My Own Kingdom

My English IV students...Seniors...are currently looking graduation in the eye, 14 more days until their blessed tasseled walk, but before they can gain a diploma, they must finish the creative writing unit started two weeks ago.

It's killing them.

Their first short story was to be a Faust. We read an excerpt, watched a blip of "The Little Mermaid," then they were released. They needed a central character who wanted something, but to gain it, had to sell a portion of freedom, or even, their soul. Lords, devils, contracts, and flawed characters turned up some fairly clever tales.

Next up, plays. Students read a bit of Endgame, an absurd drama by Samuel Beckett, one of my favorites. Solomon would be proud. Meaningless, meaningless. All is meaningless...in a Beckett play, at least.

On to Frankenstein. Students' short stories had to be from the perspective of the monster, a bit of inspiration from the hit production Wicked.

But the assignment that just about made my seniors keel over from their own guttural wailing was the humor segment.

Did you know Steve Martin, that's right- the father of the bride, the father of a dozen children, and the self-proclaimed lover of mixed-nuts, wrote a book of short stories. And they are all funny.

Or at least I thought so. I copied off about eight of them, making a packet for each student thinking, "They'll definitely want to keep these hilarious stories!"

But my seniors? They felt...other...emotions.

I told my students that if they read their humor stories out loud in class and made me laugh, I would give them fifteen bonus points. And let's just face it- fifteen points could make or break graduation for a few of these highly lovable albeit procrastinating seniors.

Here is the story that broke my laugh bubble today. Fifteen points well deserved.

Once upon a time, in a mystical far away world, there was a small kingdom called Englishfoura. This kingdom was ruled over by a benevolent queen named Blaina. Under her wise rule, the assignment crops flourished and the grade harvesters prospered. Her loyal subjects were happy, and so was she.

One day, however, a twisted thought entered her head. "I'm bored with all of this. I think I'll assemble my subjects and make a decree."

And that is exactly what she did. So on the allotted day, the subjects assembled before their queen, looking eagerly to their loved leader. They were confident that something wonderful was in store for them, so they thought nothing of the papers that were being passed among them.

"Everyone open your papers," she called.

The people eagerly opened them, but to their horror and dismay, they found that the papers contained a collection of incredibly lame 'humorous' short stories.

"Now," the queen said with an evil gleam in her eye, "read them ALOUD."

The terrified people groaned inwardly, but did as they were told, and for the space of an hour, they suffered.

When the poor souls had finished, they looked hopefully back to the queen; perhaps there was a good reason for this?

But it was not to be.

The queen let loose a maniacal laugh that filled them with dismay.

"Now," she cried, "write one YOURSELF!"

And so began the dark times. The happy kingdom was transformed into a hopeless wasteland, filled with despair and sorrow. No one could bring themselves to create such horrible humor.

But every story has a hero, and this one is no exception.

For traveling the land, there was a character of infinite coolness; a man of unspeakable awesomeness. Wielding the Sword of Sarcasm, he lived to defend the witless and destroy the sharp of tongue; restoring good humor wherever he went.

And that is exactly what he was here to do.

He marched into Blaina's black fortress, intent on restoring order to the land. Her guards moved to stop him, but they shied away when they realized it was futile.

Finally, he arrived in the throne room.

An evil laugh filled the air. "Good, you must have come with another stack of bad humor papers! I can't wait to give them all bad grades! There is no way they can succeed with this assignment!"

The Sword of Sarcasm rang as it was drawn.

"I have come to end this madness," he declared.

"NOOOOOOO!" screamed Blaina.

With unfathomable skill, he wielded the Sword of Sarcasm, destroying all of the bad humor papers that were stacked in the room. Having finished his first grisly task, he lifted his hand and blasted Blaina with a bolt of pure awesomeness.

The madness left her eyes, and the black clouds over the countryside began to disperse.

So the queen was restored to good sense, the awesome dude returned to his home, and the subjects never had to write humorous stories ever again. Everyone lived happily ever after.

The end.

And so live the residents in the happy kingdom of Englishfoura, along with their first-year ruler, Blaina, wife to King Blaino, and owner of Sir Ivan.

Life is good, and only 29 more days until I can smooch my nephews.