Slightly Askew

On Wednesday at a professional development meeting, I was introduced to the 4 types of teachers.  Mind you, I've read many of these types of lists before.  The trend in education every few years is to rename or reinvent what was once old.  I remember the cynical eye rolls of the veteran teachers I used to work with.  They've been through different superintendents, principals and a decade of classroom students.  By the end of their tenures they had become what this study on Wednesday called the "Survivors."  Just reading the name implies that the energy required to motivate and sustain a career has long been gone.  There was retirement to look forward too, grand kids and the warmer climate of a summer home.

I always looked on the survivor teacher (or the fundamentalist teacher--one who resists changes) with some form of derision and contempt.  There was always this part of me that wanted to leave an anonymous note in their mailbox with the inscription: You should just retire now.  They would rant and rave in the teacher's lounge and all the ladies would wonder who wrote it.  But in the end the message would hit home.  Problem solved!

But then again, if there was any anonymous note in anyone's mailbox it would be mine.  It would simply read: Dude, chill.

The pressure I place on myself is much greater than the one anyone else could impose.  As a teacher, no job is ever done.  Assessments, the data crunching, paperwork and lesson plans are ongoing as they are tedious.  Like any teacher, I have several papers bound together with clips, all awaiting attention.  The evidence of a days work--half pencils, paper shards, the lid from some lonely marker--all need to be swept away.  The bulletin boards need attention and the calendar sets slightly askew on a dry erase board that has the remnants of smeared powdery dry marker on its surface.

I'm late to meetings at times and I've been known to be on my phone or grade papers.  I have 27 students who all need a variety of attention that I feel inadequate to give.  I told the kids that I read about those teachers with "of the year" awards and accolades.  Those are my expectations.  The survivor isn't an expectation, it's a safety net.

But lately, that's how teaching has felt, like I'm looking forward to an end game that isn't even there.

And the home life is sometimes just as cluttered.

I was watching a foreign film a few weeks back (first warning of existential crisis?  Foreign film viewings!).  It was one of those that I couldn't remember why I had it on the queue, but I tried it anyway.  It featured a family who decided to check out from the mundane life they were living in a drastic and tragic way.  It was a film of repetition, routine and sadness.  I wouldn't recommend it but the director's arms-length point of view and lack of emotion  has not left my mind since I watched it.  I the began to look at some of the routines in my life.

Like any dad, any home, there's laundry to be done (our break from the mundane came thanks to a wayward bottle of white out that blotted several of our clothes with sprinkles of white) and carpets to clean.  The marks of kids can be seen in any direction, a solitary doll shoe, a dog-eared book, a soldier who lost his way from the basement to the bedroom.  The dog pulls his bed from the cage as if he's searching for some perfect view of the house when we aren't home.  There's cars to be fixed and a garage to clean.

Yes, a God's man is forever busy.  We're supposed to be the light upon the lamp stand.  If I were at home all the time doing nothing, the time would be filled with something, and for me, that's not always a great thing.  Left to my own devices, I'd eat all day and browse pictures of girls.  I'd sleep all day and wouldn't change my clothes.  And while this past week I've been reluctant to identify with the Holy Spirit that is working overtime to break through my hard heart, I cannot deny the thrills that come with life.

The feeling I got in a room full of youth on the launch night of our Disciple Now weekend.  That feeling of satisfaction when the 2-3 zone we implemented in practice shut down the opponent tonight in our weekly scrimmage (I'm helping a friend coach 9th grade boys basketball).  It's the conversations that stem from choosing to wear a blatant Christian shirt (the one tonight was, a blood donor saved my life).  It's the voice of the 3 parents I talked to today about their child's successes and challenges.

In the end there really isn't anything routine.  Each day is an opportunity.  Each new face we see is a chance to awaken a smile.  That's all God expects, to believe and let Him do the work.  For too long I drift into old habits.  I try to tame the lion, keeping it caged up.  That baby wants to run.  It's the feeling I get in the company of men on my Wednesdays when we get off track and laugh ourselves back onto the agenda.  It's the rebuke of a pastor who knows what you really meant when you sent him that email, and it's in the form of my principal who knows just what I needed and exactly how to say the words:

Dude, chill.