Snake Mazes

My biggest complaint of late has been the most regrettable.  And like all complaints, there's enough of a glaring, piercing light on the deficiency that you carry that complaining about it only means you basically don't like yourself.  And like all complaints, we shake our fists at God as if to say, thanks for nothing."  It's as if we don't like our jobs, the days of the week, the food at a restaurant, our kids or the amount of time we squander everyday.  We shake our fists and lament the traffic, the wasted time, the glitches in the system that keeps you from enjoying some selfish "me" time.  

But we complain anyway, don't we?

This is the first year of teaching in many years that I can ever remember that could easily be May.  Education has always been a rather fluid profession.  I have never had the same management system or incentive program.  What works for one group may not work with another.  If you don't tweak something, you get labeled that teacher who everyone thinks they get from movies like "Waiting for Superman".  Curriculum changes on a whim.  New books get purchased, old ideas are given new names.  I still have old files on disks of great tests questions for a basal reader kids use in Borneo now.

The numbers are always the enemy.  Not enough of a percentage have passed a test--probation for you.  You have a very high number of free lunch candidates--you get funding!  Not enough kids in a classroom--you get staff reduced and sent to the place no teacher in the district even wanted to interview for.  Too many kids in the classroom?--not a problem, we'll get back to you in a month.

I have 33 kids from my last count.  One kid returned from being on vacation, missed the first 8 days of school, and has joined an already packed room.  Getting to the front of the room requires a few stretches, some snake-mazing, a pole vault and some belly tucks.  We're a jovial group.  I have a combined fourth and fifth grade class, generally called a "split" among the people who work in Columbus.  I say that word elsewhere to teachers in other districts and I get 200 tweets about calling my union.  I'm trying a new management system, teaching math for the first time in 5 years and trying to implement a virtual bevy of materials and strategies to give them the best that they deserve.

Motivation comes in many forms, now that I've found ways to harness it.  My wife, the pictures of old students on the walls, the looks of my future students who want to hi-five and hug me as I pass them in the halls.  God should be my initial source of information.  I want him to be.  At times He is.  At times, I'm just a fan (from a great book by Kyle Idleman).  I have brushed past my newly purchased "Jesus shirts" in the closet during the weekends.  I'm ho-hum.  Lukewarm.  While God is still close to me, I keep turning, asking Him, "Are you sure you want me?"  I'm fickle.

And in the middle of a complaint, God spoke (again).

Recess duty is always interesting.  I get to watch kindergartners shoot airballs, fifth graders double-dribble and girls who attempt to jump into a double dutch rope only to see it tangle in their braids.  Some kids follow me like I carry bacon.  Some come and want me to watch them run across the pavement in mach speed.  Some dance and others even sing.  The stories they tell are sometimes tragic, funny, fantastical and gruesome.  They tattle too.  They hate getting kickballs snatched from their grasps and they don't mind snitching on a fellow classmate if the degrading of moms break the rules of decency.  Poor moms always get degraded on blacktop playgrounds.

So it is inevitable that kids become rogue investigative reporters.  Crickets get thrown in kids, girls scream and fingers get pointed, water break.  In the course of rounding up a suspect, I notice a group of about 10 girls seated around one of the tables.  Their heads are down, holding hands, eyes closed.

Are they praying?

So I join in like the kid I am.  And sure enough of the the girls says a prayer.

Dear Lord we're thankful for bibles and our friends and school.  We're sorry for the bad things we have done and hope you forgive us.

That was a the short version.

In my quest to find my suspect, I rejoined the hands I was holding and left.  (now, that story will have to be told another time.  I'm not sure how lesbians, truth or dare, and spin the bottle relate to a group of praying girls, but there's no logic to blacktop freedom)

Coming back later, I see the same prayer girls crying.  Like sobbing.  I go over and they tell me they are thinking about all the bad things they have done and it made them sad.  So here's the door I'm always praying about.  Lord, I'm not always faithful.  Show me a door, open an opportunity to show my faith.

Girls, there's no need to be sad.  That's what prayers are for.  We lift those concerns to Him.  That's why He died for us, so we wouldn't be sad anymore.

I think they cried more.

One of my sidekicks begins talking again.  I think they need their sins washed away.

Yeah, don't we all.