It’s also a good time to evaluate what didn’t work so well last year - academically and socially. What can I do differently to make the classroom work better this year? How can I rearrange them physically? How can I rearrange the schedule to better suit our needs? How can I give them more responsibility? How can I present these new topics to get them on-board and excited about and invested in the learning process?
I think the beginning of school is a great time for teachers! As they are evaluating and planning, it’s natural to also take stock of themselves as a teacher, as a person, as a wife and mother, and as a Christian. (You know how once we start to evaluate, it’s hard to stop!) And sometimes the question comes up - you know, when we’re tired from moving books around and cleaning and preparing - does any of this really matter? To borrow R.C. Sproul’s phrase, are we just on hell’s hamster wheel? Why are we doing this?
It’s all about the kids, right? Well, not exactly. If it’s all about the kids, then watching them grow is a very scary thing, scarier than reality, because as they grow, they’re growing you out of a purpose for existence. As a parent, if my whole life is about rearing my children, then when they’re gone, I don’t matter any more.
So is it about teaching for teaching’s sake? I should have, as one of my goals, to teach the curricula to the best of my ability. That means hours of preparation and research into supplemental activities to meet the individual needs of each child. And more than that, I should have done the research to find the best, the absolute best curricula. Only . . . who gets to decide which curricula is best? And what if, halfway through the year, I decide to change curricula, does that mean I’ve done a terrible job of teaching? Does that mean I didn’t prepare fully to anticipate the needs of a child who would be better suited with something else? That’s the road to self-doubt, which is so demoralizing! It also means that you’re always looking for new and better, which is a never-ending, and therefore, exhausting, struggle!
Maybe we’re doing this, teaching, preparing to teach, for the glory of God. Do you realize how that stops hell’s hamster wheel in its tracks? As I was writing the above, I was feeling the anxiety of doing it right, of finding the best, of working feverishly to make this the best year ever. But that’s my own efforts. That’s with the kids and the curricula in the forefront. If I stop to consider that everything I do is for the glory of God, then He’s the One to whom I need to go for wisdom to teach effectively. He’s the One who will make my paths straight and guide me each day to reach the children. He’s the One I’m really serving.
O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me. ~Psalm 131:1-2
As I start each day, if I remember that He’s the One I’m serving, then it’s not about completing lists (which never end), it’s not all about the children (who grow up and move away), it’s not about curriculum (which is just the means to the goal), it’s about glorifying and serving the Lord who created and saved me. I don’t have to have all the answers; He’s got them. I don’t have to know every step for the whole year; He makes my path straight before me. I don’t have to make all of the right choices now for the whole year; He’ll help me make adjustments as needed. For this time, for this season in my life, He’ll give me what I need to teach.
While I am thoroughly confident that God will help me teach, my perspective isn’t first and foremost on teaching. That’s the hamster wheel. Rather,God will give me, in this season of my life, the ability to serve Him as a teacher of the children with which He has blessed me. My life isn’t about teaching children; it’s about serving God. Right now, my service to Him involves teaching children, but I keep my eyes on Him, not on the children.
There’s a wonderful side-benefit to being a teacher: this wonderful soul-searching each August before the start of school which recenters me on Jesus Christ as my Source, my God, my Savior, and the One I serve - ‘cause right around the corner is the Feast of Trumpets and Atonement. Soul-searching before a day which pictures the return of my King and a day which pictures the wiping away of every sin, that’s a very good thing. I think it’s a very good thing to be recentered and get off hell’s hamster wheel!
Evaluating and adjusting my perspective does one other very beneficial thing: it gets me very excited for the starting of the school year. It’s going to be a great year of learning for all of us!