I try, I promise...

Well I guess Tuesday was International Day of Peace, who knew?  MG did!  She is all about saving the world and I LOVE it!  She came up to me as I was in the back taking attendance on Tuesday morning with her sweet stylish yet hippie hairdo and said, "Miss Williams, happy International Day of Peace."  I chuckled and responded, "You too M." 

That next bell, well let's just say they didn't get to experience peace to much.  As I walked around the room to check on their bell ringer activity, making flashcards, six students felt that they didn't need to complete or even attempt the work.  My response, I took it as a grade and the students finished out the bell with boring book work.  "Why should I waste me time planning for your class if not all of you even do what I ask you to?"  My questions left the students speechless, they didn't say a word the rest of the bell and when they came in for round two of Miss Williams that day, they silently read and started a verb poem, they weren't allowed to speak.  Am I too hard on the students?  Should I have reacted differently?  What should I expect from 7th graders?  Some days I don't know what to do, others I stumble through.  Some days I feel so clueless and wonder why someone as entrusted a hundred some students to me.  Then I remember that I do love teaching and that I am more gifted at teaching than others.

God, let my sleep be refreshing tonight.  Through it and Your Spirit give me patience to love Your children this week.  Allow me, because I can't be on my own, to be an effective teacher who not only teaches language arts but teaches of Your love.  Give me strength to work through my failures and my inabilities to be perfect.

6 Detentions within 24 hours, my new record.

Usually breaking records are something to be proud of, even my first lunch detention I ever gave I was proud of myself.  As a first year teacher I feared the fatal mistake of every other first year teacher, not having good classroom management, so I aired on the safe side.  I gave a lunch detention on the second day of school.  There is no doubt in my mind "Miss Williams" was known as the mean teacher that gave CE a detention on the SECOND day of school, harsh, I know. 

Today as one of the "perfect" students left study hall she mentioned she got hit with an eraser, yet another first year mistake: not paying attention to the students during study hall.  This wasn't the first day that five particular, male, students decided to throw small objects in the classroom.  The larger more dominate teacher from next door came over to help give me the courage to give four boys lunch detentions and the fifth an after school DT, this was his second offense, bummer.

I felt horrible, I feel horrible, and three of the boys have yet to know of these mystical lunch DTs that I type of.  Happy Wednesday tomorrow to them!  Now, you may be asking about the sixth DT within the twenty-four hours.  Well, that student, I can't even begin to go down the list of all he did to push my buttons enough to get a DT.  Not listening to me when I asked for him to move his seat, 3 times, jabbing his book into my leg while I gave the rest of the class instructions for their journal prompt and the icing on the cake, he didn't fill in his guided notes.  I approached him numerous times within the class period but  I got to my breaking point. This all happened yesterday, today though, a new day.  When I saw him before school started today I told him, "AG, it's a new day, tomorrow is forgotten (other than serving the lunch DT) and today you have the choice to walk into the room and be the student who I know you are actually proud of being."  I didn't say one word to him today, an angel. 

God, your grace is enough.  I know the depth of my sin and it is far deeper than thrown erasers and jabbing books, it's just difficult to believe that some days.  May the power of your grace overcome my weakness of patience and allow me to love the children you have entrusted to me.  Let me teach them far more than grammar, but teach them of your grace and your power.

2 Cor 12:9 (NIV)

⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.