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?