A Year in Review: Part 1

Warning: This is a very long post. Only read if you really, really feel like it. Or if you really, really love me. See how I just guilted you there? :)

I've been meaning for awhile to write out some sort of reflection on this year, but I kept thinking it was too early and my mind and body were still recuperating. After a full day of wasting time watching CSI (although I do now know five new ways to dispose of a body if the need should arise), I think I am now clearly rested enough to begin reflection. I am a planner: I like to scheme and dream and organize my life well in advance, so one way I like to reflect on things looking backward is to think about the unexpecteds. The unexpecteds is a term I just made up approximately 15 seconds ago to signify the many aspects of life that I did not plan for. If I write about what I planned for, it's, well, kind of boring -- I knew it would happen. If I write about all that I did not plan for, I give myself a healthy reminder of the many ways I am not in control, and of God's provision in the good unexpecteds and comfort in the bad. So, to save the best for last, let me start with...

The Bad Unexpecteds

1) The month of October: The month of October was dreadful. I had been in school long enough to completely exhaust myself, but not long enough to feel like I was getting any better at my job. I also started the year with the added difficulty of believing that because I had heard so many teachers say, "If only I had know x, y, or z my first year," I could avoid all the initial first year teacher woes. I though I had lived through them vicariously. I thought I had learned from others' mistakes. I thought I was the expection. The month of October taught me...I thought wrong. Looking back, I can see how my arrogant drive to succeed where all others had failed (or at least floundered) and my inability to cope with my own shame at being simply average made an inherently stressful time a lot worse for me.

As a result, I am trying to learn from my mistakes, and am already fully expecting to be perfectly horrible (or, perhaps worse, normally bad) at the first year of marriage, whenever it comes along.

2) Disciplining children: I never expected this to be the hardest part of my job, or at least not in the way it was. I did not actually have trouble being strict or issuing consequences when they were well-deserved. My school also helps a lot with that by having a pretty strict and transparent system of discipline. What I had trouble with was figuring out how to issue those consequences. Before this year, disciplining children seemed like a relatively simple formula in my mind: child breaks rule = adult issues associated consequence. What I never considered was the myriad of choices in how to issue a consequence. What tone of voice, how to move toward the student, calling a student out in the middle of class, waiting until after class, speaking loudly, speaking quietly, allowing the student to speak, not offering the student any chance to speak -- all of these are real choices in issuing a consequence, and all of them can be a good or bad choice in any given circumstance. I wasn't prepared to make those choices so frequently and, as someone who likes to find the right way to do everything, I wasn't prepared for how emotionally draining it would be to always be questioning my decisions and wondering if a different choice would have made the situation more instructive, pleasant, easy, etc. And this was not purely overanalysis: at one point, I had a student furious at me for an entire week because he perceived my tone in issuing a consequence as mocking him, when I had been trying to give him the opportunity to laugh at himself for a silly mistake, save face, and move on. I am still not completely at peace with this one, but I am learning to read my students better, and also learning to let go of the times when I do not do things the "right way," especially since this changes depending on each child and day. I have, however, definitely repented of all the times as a babysitter I judged parents and imagined that discipline was easy. God has a sense of humor.

3) Managing time: Somehow, although I was very fairly warned by older and wiser folks, "You will never have as much free time in your life as you did in college," I managed to miss this one coming. This whole year has been a constant lament about the lack of time. I felt like every weekday evening during the school year, I had to make a choice between preparing well for class, doing the necessary adult life tasks (like cooking, cleaning, bill-paying, laundry), investing in relationships, or resting. On a given night, I found, I could really only do one of those fully. (Unfortunately for my roommates, it was usually not cleaning.) Weekends were sometimes worse because, while I would have more time, I would demand more of myself, and then face the bitter Sunday night disappointment and frustration when I had still not accomplished all that I wanted and would have to put things off until the next weekend. Again, I have not figured this one out yet, and would love thoughts. How do I love and prioritize the friends God has put into my life when it feels like there is not time to be a good friend to all of them? How do I make time to do the things that seem the most necessary (like laundry -- clean underwear is a must!) without getting bitter that it is time taken away from people or sleep? How do I rest in the midst of it all? This is probably my biggest challenge going into next year, and one I struggle with even as I face the "unlimited" free time of summer, which is already racing away faster than I would like.

That is all for now. I will try to write the good unexpecteds tomorrow; there are actually more of them. :) I do want to end this part, though, by saying that even in these unexpected pains and challenges, I have seen so much good come. God has shown me so much more about myself and revealed to me more of ways I need to trust in him. Am I good at any of it yet? Heck no! Am I thankful for all the learning? Most of the time not; on any given day, I'd probably try to trade it. But I know deep down that it is for my good, and that I do not want to stay in a place of complacence, so I am thankful for the growing, however painful the process may be.