Month: August 2012 (Page 3 of 5)

That’s what a teacher is afforded to significantly impact, change, encourage and instill knowledge into the 20 30 or 150 students assigned to him. And today – Day One – sets the pace. 

Sarah and Kristen begin making the transition into kindergarten – a big one, please remember – smooth and as easy as possible. In a room of 30 other anxious and scared and even crying little friends. Mary, Michelle, Lindsay, Jessie, Nicole, Jenna, Allison, Tabitha (and countless more) get a new class of little ones who, though they’ve been in school before, this grade is new to them. Their excited and nervous little selves chatter about who is in class with them, where they sit, and wonder aloud when recess and lunch will happen. They’ll probably wonder that aloud at least 12 times. Before lunch. 

And the poor souls who take on that angsty junior high stage… Carol, Wendy, Apryl, Kelly… many prayers to the heavens on your behalf. Compound the first day excitement with raging hormones, not to mention that these individuals keep the lives of hundreds of students close to their heart. A student will walk in the door, say something that tugs at their heart, and this teacher gets 50 minutes each day to try to meet that need. Fifty minutes. One hundred and eighty times. I don’t do a lot of math, but I can tell you that’s not much to try to encourage the change and meet the challenges that we parents expect of them. 

Of course, JJ, Dan, Leah, Matt, Marianne and Kathy take on the numerous high school students that opt into their classroom. Same story, different pace. Given 50 minutes, 180 times, to instill in each of the hundreds of students a love of literature or an eye for art or the gift of self-expression or the ability to compute the square root of an insignificant number. A small piece of the larger puzzle of preparing students for “the real world” – which doesn’t, I might add, give them equal credit for late work or near as many do-overs to “try a little harder this time” and rarely an exam review day. 

Each student that they enter into their ProgressBook lists brings through the door a story. They bring the baggage of moms and dads who love, but fail. They bring their worry and stress about not being “enough” or not fitting in. They bring academic needs of more – or less – challenge in comparison to their peers. They wonder, deep somewhere in that precious little body, if they’ll ever have enough, do enough, be enough. And they sit among 20 30 others that feel similarly but yet it’s seldom spoken. 

And these teachers bear in themselves each of these stories. They take each student to heart. The stories keep them up at night, send them to their classroom early and provoke calls to principals, fellow teachers or anyone who might have an idea on how to help this student “get it.” 

I may have some doubt about the public education system. But I don’t doubt teachers (okay, I do doubt the ones that coach, sometimes. And sometimes I’m right. But more often, coaching teachers care as much as the class advisors). Teaching means taking on children that are not your own and giving them everything you’d want your own to have. It means being under-resourced and over-burdened. It means having each parent walk through the door thinking, “but this is my precious!” and never understanding that they have 30 – or 150 – preciouses. 

Today, take a picture of your kid’s first day of this grade. And then say a prayer for the teacher  (or 8 teachers) who will be welcoming him or her at the school door. Find a way to team with her and encourage her and honor him. Be short to point fingers and quick to ask questions, starting with “what can I do?” In 3 weeks put it on your calendar to bring a cup of coffee or a french crueller. At Christmas time, don’t buy a candle or a bottle of lotion. And in 93 days, when everyone is tired and the new and shiny has worn off, bring a cup of coffee then, too. Because these teachers are still trying to teach the standards, prep for tests and spend hours grading that which your child has complained about, not because they want to but because they’re trying to help them formulate, express and evidence they’ve mastered the material. 

School’s in session. Hug a teacher. Or buy her a drink. 

However, I find it difficult to tell her how great she looks because it implies a lack of beauty in her “before” shots. She’s managed to loose a whole caboodle of poundage through the hard work of eating well and numerous visits to Urban Active*. But weight – or lack thereof – doesn’t make one pretty. So I have a hard time expressing to the rev that  I do indeed think she looks great without having a slight battle of the conscience.  

So here’s what I realized:

1. I’m proud of her. She made a decision to honor her body and she followed through. When you watch her check-ins at UA**, often she’ll say that she didn’t “want” to be there, but the hard work of doing that which you don’t feel inclined is often the work that matters the most. 

2. Related, but I wanted a new bullet: the effort to resist eating what you love because you know you don’t need it. AG once told me her secret for Chipotle success (“choose between cheese and sour cream”) but as a person who loves both condiments, I always go with what I want, not what I need. Sometimes I’m not sure which is harder, getting yourself to the gym or resisting foods you love. 

3. Confidence sparks beauty. It’s not so much the number on the tag of A’s new pants, but the way she loves herself when she puts them on. Nothing is sexier than contentment and comfort in one’s own skin. 

4. I should have told her she was beautiful before she lost weight. If pounds don’t matter, then she should have heard me tell her that I felt that way. Why do we need events to remark how beautiful others are? Instead, as I encounter beauty, I should be declaring it so. Does this mean that we can’t encourage others to live healthy lifestyles that may involve loosing weight (among other things, such as lowering cholesterol, taking care of the heart, building stronger muscles and the score of other repercussions of eating well and moving the body)? I think we can. Face it, some beautiful people need to care for themselves better. Some very fit and toned folk aren’t always beautiful. We – I – shouldn’t interchange the two ideas. 

5.  I can’t think of a fifth. Insert your own in the comments below. How do you go about complementing someone on weight loss successes? How do you make sure that beautiful people know they’re beautiful? 

2 Corinthians 6:11-13, The Message