A class of my own! . . . to share . . . for a few weeks . . . .

Whew! My life has changed radically since my last post! I'm now a full-time teacher - kind of.

I've been hired to fill a long-term sub job. However, if my credentials pass muster, I'll be hired as a salaried teacher, although still just for the two months.

A teacher at a school where I've subbed quite a bit (and where the principal is a member of our neighboring church) is taking a two-month leave. Her MIL and mother and brother all died suddenly within the space of a month.

She is in a co-teaching situation and without going into any details, it's a tough job. Besides the turmoil the teacher-on-leave was experiencing, the co-teacher with whom I'm working has been sick and absent a lot. She's also pretty much my total opposite in personality and teaching style. For example, she's chatty and I'm quiet. In other ways, we are dramatically different.

In this coteaching class are 33 second-grade children, in a regular-sized classroom. (This is one of Florida's ways of adapting lack of space to the numbers schools here must accomodate.) There are other aspects that make it more difficult than your average teaching job, I think (I hope!), so it is challenging, exciting, exhausting, and will be a wonderful learning experience. I'm going to be planning, grading papers, posting grades, reorganizing the room, doing parent conferences, student retentions, etc. - all with a co-teacher, but all still a LOT of work, especially for a sub. If I didn't want to be a full-time teacher, I probably wouldn't take a job that's this hard.

Today I invited four of the students to lunch with me; I challenged them to make good choices and make it a good day and this would be their reward. Schools here are campuses of buildings connected by covered walkways. Outside the cafeterias are tables for parents to lunch with their children, teachers to eat together, etc. These students were very excited to have such a treat. (Who would have thought that kids would be thrilled to eat lunch with a teacher?!) My co-teacher joined us, and it was very enjoyable. I was amazed at how much pleasure I got from spending casual time with them and getting to really listen to them. I mostly wanted to do this to begin bonding quickly, and I think it worked. Even though the afternoon was wild and chaotic (typical Friday energy and lack of attention but with 33 kids), I had such a warm feeling about my first week. I'm looking forward to doing this with the rest of the students in coming days.

Less than a month ago I posted about being needed (or feeling NOT needed). Be careful what you pray for, right? I know better than to pray for patience! Maybe I should have known better than to pray to be needed. Did I pray this or complain this? Is it the same thing? Does God view complaints as requests? God is able to do more than we ask or imagine, isn't He? Is He challenged by our naive prayers to give us more than we ask for or imagine in areas of growth? It would seem so. So now I am cautiously praying, as I do every day and have for a long time, that God be my competence, that I see Jesus in my students and fellow staff, that I BE Jesus to my students and fellow staff (the triune Randy Harris mantra), and that God be glorified in all that I do.

I can already see great need in this classroom, in individual students and as a whole. It may be that I'm being called to minister to my fellow teacher as well. I only have two months, but it is my sincere prayer that God use me mightily in these few weeks and that the Spirit empower me to be what He wills me to be in this class and this school. I suspect that the ways He uses me will impact me even more than those for whom I'm praying. I'd appreciate your prayers on my behalf.