Teaching Now

At school, we are organizing the classes for next year. There will inevitably be changes, but we always set the classes in June for the following September. Knowing which students are coming into grade two next year, it will be a hard year. There are a lot of needs.

Teaching looks quite different than it did twenty years ago. There is a lot more anxiety in kids. There are a lot more allergies. Even though I think kids are over diagnosed with things like ADHD, there are definitely a lot more issues with attention and behaviour than there were twenty years ago. COVID and the fear and lack of socialization it brought were terrible for children. But, in a lot of ways, kids are still just kids.

So, a few of the staff have been asking me which kids I would like to have in my class next year. And more specifically, which special needs kids, since every class will have some. And my honest answer is that it depends which support worker is attached to the child. Kids who qualify for an EA (education assistant) are generally assigned two EAs: one for the morning and one for the afternoon. To me, it makes all the difference which EAs will be in my classroom. Most of them are ok. Some, I really would not want to work with. And a handful are wonderful.

This year I was lucky enough to have Cheryl in my class most mornings and it was amazing. This year was also supposed to be difficult based on some of my behaviour students. But it wasn't. It probably helps that I generally like the quirky challenging kids. But it was also Cheryl. We had fun together. Her goals for students match mine. She doesn't hand-hold or baby the kids. She's firm and fun and helps everyone. Having someone like her in the classroom is a gift to the kids, and to me.

To belong

"Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who we need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn't require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are." Brené Brown

I have never really felt like I belonged anywhere, like I was truly free to be myself. I have been told I ask too many questions. I have been told that I am harsh and critical. I have been told a lot of things. Most of them have made me feel like I need to hide my true self, or at the very least tone it down.

But there is one place where I belong. My community group. I may still annoy them with too many questions. I may be too honest sometimes. But, I feel free to be myself. Truly. What a gift.

Choir!

I recently rejoined choir for the spring. It meant signing up for three rehearsals so that I could then sing in the choir in their May concert. Previously, I was in the choir for three years before covid. I made friends, we went on retreats; we bonded. So, it was so great to be back! I love singing and I love the enthusiasm and joy of the choir. It's contagious! I had kind of forgotten how much I enjoy it. I am seriously considering going back in the fall....

Washington, DC

The second part of our trip took us to Washington, DC. Since we were flying all the way to the east coast, and neither of us cared to see Orlando, we figured we might as well stop somewhere else on the way home. We settled on Washington. We stayed in an air B&B that was close enough to most attractions that we could walk and boy did we do a lot of walking. Thankfully the weather was not unbearably hot, so that we could actually walk without too much discomfort.

Washington is full of museums and our first stop was the Museum of the Bible. It was fascinating and had a lot more variety of exhibits than you might expect. One of my favourites was the gallery of paintings of the Old Testament prophets. Another favourite was an interactive walkthrough of the Old Testament. We ended up going to the museum twice because there was so much to see on so many floors. Of course we stopped at the White House, Library of Congress, the Washington monument. They all felt grandiose and historic. We also went to several Smithsonian museums. I loved the art in the National Gallery. I loved seeing Julia Child's actual kitchen in the National Museum of American History. We went to the Botanical Gardens and Capitol Hill. We did a lot of touristy things every day and a tonne of walking. But, we also had time for leisurely lunches and hanging out and of course coffee. The best was Ebenezer's Coffeehouse which was an old crack house purchased by a church and now funding missions and community outreach. The coffee was delicious, but the story of how the cafe came to be made it taste that much better.

In the evenings we were pretty exhausted so we cooked a late dinner at home, did laundry, watched tv and planned our next day.

On Sunday, we walked to the local Baptist church. Good thing we got there early because it was packed! The church was full of all ages and had a wonderful, warm and welcoming atmosphere. The sermon was on Revelation which was cool as we are actually currently studying Revelation together. The songs were more traditional and I loved that there was a real piano. (Electric pianos are stupid.)

Surprisingly, we did hardly any shopping on the whole trip. In Orlando, we did go to one mall and buy a couple of things. In Washington there were no malls in the city centre. No big deal since prices in the US continue to be crazy compared to what they used to be. But, I might have squealed with delight when we happened upon a TJ Maxx and Nordstrom Rack by chance....

Ligonier

Woah, it's been three months since I posted?? How did that happen? Well now that I am home super sick and lying down hurts my congested head, I guess I have all the time in the world to blog, lol. Despite feeling awful, I am so grateful for the timing of this illness. My report cards are written and I've been home from my trip for a week. 

My trip. I went away for two weeks with my friend Serene. We had talked for awhile that we would like to attend a Ligonier conference some day because of the amazing Bible teaching that comes out of there. If you haven't heard of it, Ligonier was founded by RC Sproul and its mission is: proclaiming, teaching and defending the holiness of God in all its fullness to as many people as possible. They do all kinds of different podcasts, teaching series, a magazine, book publishing and I don't even know what all. Anyway, it's a huge organization and we went to their annual conference in Orlando. I don't even know where to start to talk about how great it was. The people. There were 5,400 people registered. We both actually hate crowds but this crowd was different. They were super friendly. All the volunteers were lovely and helpful. I struck up conversations with random people and my introverted self didn't even mind. Then there was the teaching. There are six "teaching fellows" who range from academics to pastors. They aren't of course all equally good, but overall the teaching was amazing. I even got to meet and get a selfie with Bob, one of my favourites. The venue. We stayed in a massive hotel which was also the site of the conference, so it was convenient. But the hotel itself was also lovely and had lots of restaurants and beautiful grounds. Because all the conference members were wearing lanyards, it felt warm and familial everywhere I went. The music. I love all kinds of music, but there is something special about hymns, especially with a live orchestra. There were also four mini concerts, my favourite being a cello concert. To top it off, the conference always ends with a choir singing the Hallelujah chorus. Wow! Need I say more? I was very sorry when the conference ended, but so grateful that I got to go. 

Next time I'll write about part two of our trip, but for now, I'm off to drink tea and read some John Calvin.