When I first moved in to this apartment, I was excited to enter into a world I where I had never traveled: Student teaching. While I thought I would be tense and uncertain during my first week in the middle school and high school, I became eager to "get my feet wet." Well, they got wet. In more ways than one.
Don't let anyone ever tell you that teaching is easy. When I was a high school student, I would slouch into my desk and raise an eyebrow at the professional educator at the front of the room who sometimes wore a tie as he tried to press more information into my ears. The poor man did not know that my mind was already humming with judgment and there was no way I would afford him space. Now I'm on the other side. I am the "professional educator" at the front of the room, although I do not wear ties. The students still slouch in their desks, but I feel removed from them. It has only been 4 to 7 years since I was in their situation, yet I cannot identify with that world anymore. I have planned quite a few lesson plans, thanks to Taylor University's requirements, and I have learned that students cannot be squeezed into my schedule. I've tried. Whether you like it or not, reviewing something they learned yesterday will take 10 minutes, not 5 minutes. For them, knowing verb forms means being able to look at their books while filling out a sheet of paper. Boy, was I naive to think that I could whip these kids into shape...
Driving home has become a bit of a therapy session. I should probably recline my seat during Gas City rush-hour traffic and get the full effect. This is the time when I think about the students who are struggling and the moments during the day when I looked at the chalkboard and prayed to the yellowing ceiling, "Dear God...I'm teaching." There are times when I feel as if I don't belong. There are other times when I know this is what I was born to do. Moments of the latter happen more than the former. Good sign, right?
Now, when I drive to school at 6:45am, the sun does not greet me by trying to pierce the back of my head through my eyes through the reflection in the rearview mirror. Oh no. Now there are heavy fogs that glide across the small ponds and valleys, which disappear as the sun rises. The cornfields have lost their youthful green for the stalks of scarecrows. With autumn approaching, the world is slowing down. The bustle of summer vacations and projects is over. Finished. (Or finishing up, for some of you.) Now comes routine and her companion, the pumpkin spice latte. Yes. I did just advertise for Starbucks. I am settling in to my student teaching and I am almost done with my first week of having complete control of all the classes. One down, two to go. That should be clear enough, right?
Well, small problem. Things are no where near as clear as that. I do not have a second placement for my student teaching, so I do not know where I will be in a month. I do not know what I will do after I graduate, where I will go, etc. When I called my parents after the second week of student teaching to tell them about my life and the rough adjustment to keep my personal life completely separate from teaching, they calmly said, "Welcome to the adult world."
That's is just what this is... a welcome to another world, completely different than the ones before it yet building off of the foundation of past worlds. It is here that I will learn how to juggle friendships and workloads. It is here that I will learn how to budget food money more closely. It is also here that I will be broken and seek healing. My God is good, though, and I have faith that he will complete all that he has set out for me. All of these worlds will make sense, but they do not have to make sense right now.
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