Go reFind Your Inner Teacher

Everyone knows that New Years to spring break hasn't been the smoothest stretch yet.
Snowdrifts, snowed-in, wacky weather (you're hot and you're cold), dangerous skating ice, various attitudes and rebellions and mutinies, last minute plan-changes, restlessness and SPRING FEVER, and a whole lot more.
There's been chaos and sadness and excitement and fun, good days and bad days and lazy days and happy days; a mad tumultuous lovely routine mess of it all.
And yet, every day has been the same. The same annoying musical alarm tone at 8 o'clock every morning throughout. The same daily mad rush to leave the house within half an hour. The same sleepy minute-long trudge to school, rain or shine. The same routine of 9am buzzer, rollcall, devotional time, exercise, math, exercise, spelling, English, lunch, story time, exercise, literature, geography, dismissal. The same fight for order and continuity and peace and kindness in class and out. The same struggle to be everywhere at once and see everything that happens. The same constant pressure to  be wise, to know the answers to every textbook and life and moral dilemma my students or I face. The conscious ambidexterity needed  to daily relate to students, coteachers, school board, and parents each in context of their own status.
Nah. Teaching schools no big deal. I do it like a boss every day. Actually like a principle. (Hahhhhhhh. Lamest joke ever. Doesn't even make sense. Sometimes laughing at things that don't make sense helps to clear a teacher's brain.)
But, as I mentioned above, it does have its obstacles.  And that is the reason there is SPRING BREAK. The school board reads the weariness on their teachers' faces and realizes that a week away from the class room would be a great break for everyone and (hopefully) reinstate Courage and Passion into the teacher and the class.
To you teachers with only a few days of spring break left; do things that rejuvenate you. If it's messaging another teacher to commiserate or sleeping til 11 that last blissful day of spring break or making an unnecessary day-trip just because you *can* leave in the middle of the day or spending a few extra minutes with your Bible/prayer time because there are no deadlines to meet. Whatever it is. Do it. And when you go back to school Monday, don't forget the things that make you a good teacher -your God, your dedication, your love, and whatever  all else are your personal supports when things get a little crazy. Cause we're counting down now (How many weeks til yearend? As much as my students enjoy school, I'm still pretty sure they'll have that number ready for me Monday morning...) and I'm sure things will get crazy. But it's a good kind of madness, the wildness of a group of excited children, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I think I will.

This post seems a little scattered; i didn't even take the time to proofread it and I wrote it around my hectic spring break schedule of sleeping in and swimming and shopping.
ThankYou, school board for giving us teachers this week to regroup. I am grateful for the chance to eat, sleep and breath something other than school. And really I'm ready to be back in school Monday and watch students all day before I go catch the sunset.

TSW
the SunsetWatcher

Connections

Does anyone else have friends and family they communicate with almost daily but don't see every single day? Isn't easy? And fun? And when you talk to them it's not difficult to imagine they are with you right now even if you know that they really aren't. Amiright?
I have a different Friend, someone I've never actually seen. For some reason though, He's the Most Important friend in my life. I talk to Him every day and though i don't know what His face looks like, I do know what His heart looks like.  The only problem is, it's rarely my iPhone that connects me to Him. Talking to him would be a little more exciting if I could pick up my device and send a quick message. The way I do talk to Him takes a little more commitment than a short message here and there. Yes, I do send him short messages -quick prayers throughout the day, not via mobile network tho and it's a little hard to pray a mindless prayer (like a mindless text message) because those kind of prayers aren't usually very genuine or effective. So the short middle-of-the-day prayers can be a bit of a problem but usually not too much, or not as much as those daily devotion-prayers. The kind where I sit down and read a long email, then type a 2 paged Microsoft document myself and sent in response and then sit waiting the other person to reply again . Except the first received email is usually in the form of my KJV Bible that sits on the table beside my bed whenever it's not in service. My email in response is a long prayer, full of news and questions and many requests and frequently a lot of praise. The second received email is often an emotion, feeling or thought, or something that either comforts me or answers one of my questions or requests. And this "email" ordeal, it's not something fast. It's not something you can do in 2.3 minutes. It's not something you can push or rush through. It's time-consuming and patience-building. But it's important; it's the conversation that gives me the stamina and vitality I need for my life.
(A challenge for this week: Put down your smartphone for a minute and talk to God.)