Doing a Hard Thing

Friday night, I got home from work around 7:15.  Where I work, school gets out at 1 on Fridays.  I kind of wanted to collapse in a blubbering heap on the tile.  Instead I ate tortilla chips, a banana, walnuts, ice cream and an apple - in that order - for dinner and watched TV for the remainder of the evening.

I don’t really do hard things.  In the history of my life, there have been rare instances (I can't think of one right now, but surely somewhere there was one) when I have done a truly hard thing.  There's not a shred of modesty in this.  I'm being honest.  Growing up, it wasn't difficult to avoid hard things because I lived a moderately fairytale-esque life.  It was the whole white, middle class, happy family scenario.  There was no gang war to live through, no digging through trash for breakfast, no babysitting five younger siblings and trying to do geometry homework. 

In school, it might have appeared like I was doing a hard thing.  I got good grades, scored high, gently kicked the SAT in the face, graduated from college with honors, blah blah blah.  It's not my fault I'm a driven first born who picks things up quickly.  That's not something I did.  I could've chosen a double major, or at least a major and a minor like some of my friends.  I took fun classes with my extra time instead.  There was Tap Dancing, Nutrition, Public Speaking, Spanish, to name a few. 

I've run a couple half marathons.  I didn't have the gusto to do the real thing.  I probably couldn't run five miles today.  I played volleyball for a little team and did a lot of bench warming.  I took piano lessons for almost ten years but don't play much now.  I love gardens, but I'm not so good at keeping plants alive because I forget to water them.  I paint my nails one color, forget the chevron or the plaid or the Indonesian ladybug design.  I read my Bible most mornings, but still have trouble putting it into practice. 

Enter big girl teaching job… Now this, this is a hard thing.  Boy howdy, is it a hard thing.  I can pretty safely say it's the hardest thing I've ever done.  The sheer physical demands of it are hard.  I'm up at 5:30, running around with kids from 8:15 to 3, working until 5:30 or sometimes later.  There's always work on the weekends.  Every sense must be heightened.  Crisis can be averted with a quick preventative shake of the head while having a conversation about what a noun is.  It's like being 15 again listening to my dad's driving advice - my head is perpetually on a swivel.  Thankfully, I have been blessed with a heaping lot of energy, so keeping up with 23 eight year olds isn't too far out of my ability range. 

Aside from being physically demanding, there's the great weightiness of being a teacher.  For one year, I am in charge of the education of 23 children.  People keep reassuring me that I can't ruin a kid in a year, and I hold tightly to that.  It is on my shoulders to help them excel, catch up, maintain, or whatever verb describes them at their level of learning.  It is on my shoulders to manage (if not meet) their parents' expectations of what their kid should be able to do.  There are meetings with specialists, emails to counselors, forms to be filled out regarding behavior management and individualized spelling lists.  All that aside, I am also responsible for modeling character, integrity, grace, justice, good vs. evil, and absolute truth for kids who may never hear the Gospel anywhere else. 

All those things are hard, and I haven't even mentioned teaching yet.  There are 23 levels, 23 personalities, 23 different gifts and combinations of learning styles to work with.  There are 23 little people that I love dearly and want to see succeed to the best of their capabilities in a world that has rigorous, dynamic demands.  Where do I even begin to make sure I am teaching to the whole child, pushing my high kids and my low kids, challenging them to take ownership of their own education, planting in their minds now the potentials for higher education?  Sure, I've seen videos of great teaching, and I can tell you all about great things to try in your classroom, but when it comes to applying all these great things, it's HARD.  I can talk all day long about great teaching, but then I hand out worksheets to my kids instead of giving them PlayDough to work on their spelling words. 

It's hard when you have a kid sobbing and explaining to you that she didn't want her brother to be born with a broken heart or Down's Syndrome or Autism.  It's hard when you have a kid sobbing because kids are spreading rumors about them or yelling at them or excluding them.  It's hard when all you want to do is love them and tell them all about Jesus because He's the only one who can fix that hurt. 

Sometimes I don't know if I'll survive this year.  Teaching takes things from you that other jobs don't.  It also gives you things that other jobs can't.  Tuesday, my kids had a rough day at P.E.  I picked them up from the gym only to find some of them crying, most of them sullen and upset, and a bad report from the coach.  We had a thorough talking to after that and before they went to P.E. on Thursday.  When I picked them up Thursday, I found them in the same state as Tuesday.  The coach was shaking her head, and most of them were sitting staring at the floor.  I launched into a lecture, only to be interrupted by the coach who said, "Nah, Miss Sunshine, they were fine" and all of my blessed precious children chimed in with jubilant shouts of "we got you Miss Sunshine, we tricked you!".  I was the proudest, gladdest, relieved-est person on campus that day, giddy with glee and so happy for my little P.C.s.  It's worth it when there are PCs fighting over who gets to hold your hand as you walk from class to the library, or one who says, "Thank you for teaching us today, Miss Sunshine, have a good weekend!" or "Miss Sunshine, I'm going to miss you at summer break" when it's only October.

Maybe I'll survive another three quarters, slowly, one meaningful day at a time.  For once, maybe I'll do a hard thing.

Only by God's grace,

Little Miss Sunshine