This I Vow: Seeking My Teacher Truth in 2018

Lately, I have been focusing a lot on who I want to be this year. What I want to change, Where I need to improve. What I need to let go of. Since it is a new year, I, like most people, itch for change, and desire to evaluate the areas of my life that I might want to start anew. There is something about a new year that calls attention to those areas we might not be so happy with.

From evaluating these areas, or honing in on the places that I have really felt God move in my life in the last year, I like to pick a word of the new year. This year I have found that to be difficult to do, however.

I am a go-getter. I am always striving for better in every discipline that I have part in. This year, though, has played out somewhat differently.

 

I have pondered and prayed about the thought of who I want to be as a teacher this year -- how I wanted to start, where I want to improve, how I want to be better as the year goes on, and no different than any other time, I want to be the best teacher I can possibly be, but I am finding that there are far too many facets to tackle being the best teacher version of myself all at once.

I am now faced with who I want to be when I meet my students at the door each and every day. 

“No longer am I just concerned with how I want to improve myself this year, but also how I want to improve myself so that I can improve as a teacher.”

The problem -- this very thought has evoked far too many potential candidates for word of the year. There are thousands of words I could choose to try to wrap up my classroom goals all into one box.

First year teacher excitement has given me a lot of goals -- some that I know I will soon find far too unattainable at this given moment in time, but others that I know I must live and teach by. Therefore, narrowing down a catalyst word has been difficult.

What I am sure of, however, is that as a sixth grade teacher, I want my students to know that I was once in their shoes.

So, when I started right there -- with considering my own middle school experience -- things became even more difficult than I was intending. I knew that to best set my personal classroom goals, the ones that do not center on curriculum and testing, I had to begin where my kids are. I had to put myself in their shoes.

So I have tried relentlessly to do that. As I try, I remember the scary and frantic days of middle school. In fact, I remember them so well that I have not wanted to remember them at all for the last 10 years. So, the slight thought of going back to middle school to teach was absurd, and the thought of putting myself in their shoes scared the daylights out of me.

But I was going back, and I had to do it, and the Lord let me know that that was that.

So, here I am. A sixth grade Language Arts teacher.

And, while I have truthfully spent the last several weeks trying to muster up the words to describe exactly how I got to that sixth grade classroom so that I could craft it beautifully into a blog post or some kind of written composition to share with the world, I have not been able to come up with anything too poetic. Just a little messy -- just like it felt.

I can really only come up with this: There is the obvious reason for my placement there, and that is my love for English and literature and my desire to share it with others, but, of course, it is far more complicated than that, or perhaps it is not all that complicated, but rather so simple that it feels as though it should be more beautiful and complex.

“It is this: Those sixth graders need me. Or, maybe I am the one who needs them.”

Thus, my word of the year is not some great, magnificent English vocabulary word that I want to study, write in my notebook, and post on my bathroom mirror for daily reminding, but instead it is a way of life -- a phrase that I want to remember, and carry in my heart as I encounter 2018 with messy first-year teacher meltdowns, lesson plans, comprehension questions, and early morning coffee on the way to work.

You see, I am almost certain that the later half of this statement is some facet of my truth this year: Those sixth graders need me. Or, maybe I am the one who needs them.

I don’t think I will spend too much of 2018 focused on areas of my life that I need the most improving, but I think that this year I will spend a substantial amount of time focused on the areas that I might need to revisit.

There is a reason that I have never spoken too highly of my middle school days, mostly because of the anxiety and the drama. However, I think that I have already seen pieces of my middle school days in my students.

In our short time together thus far, they have taught me how to laugh, how to be quirky, and how to have figurative language dance parties.

Maybe you are finding yourself in my shoes as you read this post. Messy hair, second cup of coffee in hand, at the start of third week of January, trying to figure out just what your word is this year, and building with frustration each passing day because you just can’t narrow down a specific focus that has been laid on your heart to focus on this year.

That has been me each day since January 1.

 

“Your version of your word of the year does not have to be spectacular, nor does it have to be a mysterious, unattainable focus throughout 2018.”

Look no further than where you spend your time. Look no further than where you have been pouring out your heart the last two weeks -- this may be where you need to start.

My students are teaching me that middle school doesn’t have to be a scary place after all.

“Although it may not have been my best days, I suspect that the Lord may have be revisiting this belief for a reason — so that I might debunk the idea that middle school is scary, and at the very least, do my best to make middle school a little easier, a little less scary, and a lot more fun. ”

While I navigate my way through being their teacher by bringing a kinder, more confident, more empathetic version of myself into my classroom than I did the last time I spent my days in middle school as a student, I hope they know that I need them just as much as they might need me.

I might not have a specific word chosen for 2018, but I vow to spend this year showing up for my students instead of running and staying hidden in the corners of comfortable. I vow to live out the truth in my heart: I am not a sixth grade teacher by happenstance. The Lord handpicked me. He has prepared me for this and they need me.

And I really need them.

With love,

Brittany Jeanine