Our senior's have been busy working on their "capstone" project this semester. A bit like a mini-thesis, they are required to choose a topic and research it thoroughly through conducting interviews, library research, etc. All the teachers were asked to sign up to mentor two or more students in their project, and I was assigned two girls: one is researching raw foods and the other a new cancer drug.
These girls were required to run their rough draft by me before submitting it, so I have been waiting for them to find me this week to show it to me. As the week went by and I hadn't heard from them (one is in my mentoring group, so I figured she was waiting to see me during that, but the other was a girl whom I don't know), I thought about myself during my senior year of high school and how I would have handled this situation. For others, this would be the simplest of tasks. But for me, it would have seemed insurmountable. To find a teacher whom I did not know, interrupt them during their day, and explain to them my project (which I would surely feel self-conscious about), would conjure up an immense amount of terror. I would have left it until the very last minute, and when I approached this teacher, I would have been shaking and stuttering in fear. And this would have caused me to hate myself, because who else gets scared of these things? Nobody else has to deal with this fear; why I am so freaking weird?
This was the most powerful lie of the enemy in my life, for so many years: that nobody else dealt with the fear that I dealt with. It wasn't until I became a part of the college ministry at Aldersgate that I began to realize that I was not the only one who dealt with this. Sure, some were more outgoing than I was and perhaps were not as afraid of the same types of situations, but the girls I met were still plagued with fear, self-consciousness, self-hatred and embarassment. I was not the only one, and I was not weird. More and more, I was able to see beyond the perfect exterior of many women. They might be beautiful, and most might assume they knew that, but they did not. They might be smart, and most would assume they were aware of this, but they were not. They might seem confident and outgoing and full of life, but they were still plagued with fear and shyness and death. I was not the only one who was afraid, the only one who needed Jesus desperately in order to function well in society. And I was also not the only one who needed drugs like Effexor in order to function well in society.
And so when the student finally found my on Thursday, while I was helping another student in the commons room, I was only a little bit surprised that she seemed nervous. As she explained her project to me, I could see that she was shaking, and she stuttered a bit throughout her speech. I did my best to smile and praise her and express as much love as I could to this girl, because I was talking to myself 10 years ago. But I'm sure she still left thinking she was stupid, that she had done a horrible job, that the new chemistry teacher thinks she is an idiot, because that is how I would have felt. I wish I could have told her how much I understand, how much she is not alone.
My greatest fear during my first year of teaching is that I have been too nice. I am too understanding, too compassionate, too lenient with students who are just not doing well and need extra time to complete assignments. But I struggle with this balance because of this girl, because of myself, because I desperately want these students to feel safe, to know that they are not alone, to know that I care for them and see their potential. I am thankful for the teachers that did that for me, and I pray that I can do the same for these kids, while still challenging them to work hard in life.
Being a teacher is one of the most difficult jobs in the world, but it is such a beautiful gift.
These girls were required to run their rough draft by me before submitting it, so I have been waiting for them to find me this week to show it to me. As the week went by and I hadn't heard from them (one is in my mentoring group, so I figured she was waiting to see me during that, but the other was a girl whom I don't know), I thought about myself during my senior year of high school and how I would have handled this situation. For others, this would be the simplest of tasks. But for me, it would have seemed insurmountable. To find a teacher whom I did not know, interrupt them during their day, and explain to them my project (which I would surely feel self-conscious about), would conjure up an immense amount of terror. I would have left it until the very last minute, and when I approached this teacher, I would have been shaking and stuttering in fear. And this would have caused me to hate myself, because who else gets scared of these things? Nobody else has to deal with this fear; why I am so freaking weird?
This was the most powerful lie of the enemy in my life, for so many years: that nobody else dealt with the fear that I dealt with. It wasn't until I became a part of the college ministry at Aldersgate that I began to realize that I was not the only one who dealt with this. Sure, some were more outgoing than I was and perhaps were not as afraid of the same types of situations, but the girls I met were still plagued with fear, self-consciousness, self-hatred and embarassment. I was not the only one, and I was not weird. More and more, I was able to see beyond the perfect exterior of many women. They might be beautiful, and most might assume they knew that, but they did not. They might be smart, and most would assume they were aware of this, but they were not. They might seem confident and outgoing and full of life, but they were still plagued with fear and shyness and death. I was not the only one who was afraid, the only one who needed Jesus desperately in order to function well in society. And I was also not the only one who needed drugs like Effexor in order to function well in society.
And so when the student finally found my on Thursday, while I was helping another student in the commons room, I was only a little bit surprised that she seemed nervous. As she explained her project to me, I could see that she was shaking, and she stuttered a bit throughout her speech. I did my best to smile and praise her and express as much love as I could to this girl, because I was talking to myself 10 years ago. But I'm sure she still left thinking she was stupid, that she had done a horrible job, that the new chemistry teacher thinks she is an idiot, because that is how I would have felt. I wish I could have told her how much I understand, how much she is not alone.
My greatest fear during my first year of teaching is that I have been too nice. I am too understanding, too compassionate, too lenient with students who are just not doing well and need extra time to complete assignments. But I struggle with this balance because of this girl, because of myself, because I desperately want these students to feel safe, to know that they are not alone, to know that I care for them and see their potential. I am thankful for the teachers that did that for me, and I pray that I can do the same for these kids, while still challenging them to work hard in life.
Being a teacher is one of the most difficult jobs in the world, but it is such a beautiful gift.
Thanks for always sharing your heart.
ReplyDeleteMore and more I realize how damn insecure I am and how intimidating the world can be. I wasn't always this way (well I guess I always was off and on). I wish we didn't always live in fear of what others thought. It's exhausting and unproductive and it's just not who God made us to be.
I'm glad we finally talked today but I wish I hadn't been in the middle of target so we could chat more freely. Next time we should both be drinking a diet coke or coffee and pretend like we're sitting there together rambling on and on like we're really good at doing.
wow, long comment.