A Teacher Prays

Today my mind is reeling from the events of yesterday in Moore, OK. As a teacher, my heart shudders at the thought of a tornado ripping through a building full of students. Seeing it plastered on the news over and over is giving me many reasons to pray.

It is the final week of classes here at my high school. Generally that is a cause for great rejoicing and always that is a cause for heartfelt prayer as well. I don't know as we teachers discuss our prayers for our students much. I am sure that all teachers of faith do it, however. There are several kinds of prayers that we send up to the higher power keeping watch over our students as the travel through their years in our school.

Most often, we pray for those who are struggling for various reasons... personal, academic, and socially. These prayers are the obvious ones. The less obvious are the ones that involve where a student  might go but has not yet gone... choices we know they are wrestling with, futures they have yet to decide, and sometimes decisions we know they must make but are avoiding.

But today, I am praying for the students in a place I have never been. I am praying that many more of them will be found safely tucked away in spots in their schools that perhaps sheltered them. I am praying for the parents of those who will not be found among the survivors. I am praying for the rescue and recovery workers; a more paradoxically heroic and onerous task than I can even imagine. I am praying that the families who have lost all they own will be cared for and loved and reassured that they have those around them who will help.

And I am praying that my students will be spared from ever experiencing such horrible events of nature. Even as the storm clouds build outside on what could prove to be a severe weather day here in Missouri. I do not call such events acts of God... God does not act in this way. God was in those schools helping the teachers protect the little ones who hid beneath them in the storms. God is with the rescue workers digging with hope. God is acting through all of us sending money, blood donations, and whatever we can to aid them. Those are acts of God. We are acts of His love in the world. And He tells us, "Be still and know that I am God" - so today, I will be still and pray to Him.

Back in the Saddle Again

We have been back to school since August 10th and what a wild ride it has been. If any of you have peeked at my classroom blog, you know we have embarked on a grand adventure at Lutheran High this year! We are doing a 4x4 intensive block schedule and are using 1:1 iPad2 technology as a tool in our classrooms. This has been QUITE an interesting 2 weeks! Kids are holding up well and so are the teachers. It's been rather fun to see all the collaboration that goes on when one or two people in a room need help. (esp. if one of them is the teacher!) While I can't say I am completely comfortable in my "new format" yet, I am definitely enjoying the ride! I like the way my students are tackling the new things alongside of the old, and it has reinvigorated my teaching... so as of right now, it's a thumbs up from this old teacher!

Summer seemed to slip away all too quickly this year, but it is STILL hot and the pool is still open and now that my left foot is pretty much all healed up, I am trying to enjoy every minute of it that I can.

"When I Have Fears"

Taught a rather profound poem to my ever earnest seniors this week. This crowd is the AP bunch, the highly motivated ones who plan on building bridges and perfecting cures and doing things that we can only imagine and all by their 30th birthdays.

Well, there was this fellow John Keats, I tell them, and he had watched and nursed his brother through the traumatic illness that was tuberculosis in the 1700's - and he saw his brother die. And by his own 28th birthday, John knew he himself had contracted the illness.. and that his days were numbered. And his response? He wrote a sonnet about it.....

When I have fears that I may cease to be, 

before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain....

Beautiful stuff, really, and John came to a startling conclusion. That fame and love, and things temporal really don't matter all that much in the long haul. That what matters is contemplation of the "big" ideas... like life and death and mortality and immortality.
And today... in amazing clarity... my kids' faces lit up and they got it. They made a connection with our friend Keats, a guy who never saw the backside of his 31st birthday. And it was amazing!

This is why I teach.

School Daze - year 26

Today marked the beginning of classes for my 26th year of teaching. When I look at that number, I think about when I was just starting to teach and we would celebrate anniversaries of that nature for the older teachers who always seemed VASTLY older than I feel today! Funny how time changes your perspective.

My students today all seemed rather excited to be back in school. That is no small thing when one considers that I teach seniors all day and by Christmas they will all be wanting to move on to college as fast as they can! I overheard one of them yell to another in the hall... "I've got AP Lit and it's SO COOL!" - I hope she feels that way in another month or two.

We are still in the throes of a heatwave here in St. Louis. Today the temps hit 105! Breaking a 34 yr. old record for hot days. It's rather scary to consider how much longer this heat may continue. We are all praying the cooler weather comes soon.

The photo was taken of Ed and I this past July. Hope our "school photos" come out half as well! To all of you who have to go back to the books this month... God bless!

Brrrr..... it's a cold snap!

Winter has officially arrived temperature-wise in the past few days. Below normal daytime temps and single digit overnight temps have been the pattern. All of this makes the idea of getting out of bed in the a.m. difficult. Especially when it would be so much nicer to snuggle in under the cozy quilt and wait for spring.
Late Jan. and early Feb. are always tough times for me. I maintain it's because I have to teach "Julius Caesar" every year at about this time... and all that murder and mayhem gets me down. But I am also teaching Wm.Wordsworth in my AP classes... ya know, "the world is too much with us..." and Tintern Abbey and all that jazz (I really love Wordsworth!). So, what is it about this time of year that is such a bummer. Doctors talk about Seasonal affective disorder, brought on by short days and lack of sunshine overall... but I don't buy it. I think it's got more to do with "post-December" stress disorder. Whatever it is, I hope it lifts soon.... if I have to grade one more essay about 'noble Brutus" - I might hop a plane to Bermuda!

My students amaze me!

Okay, it's time to admit something I don't say very often.... my students amaze me! Tonight I spent 2 blissful hours reading their thoughts on the English Romantic poet John Keats. They were grappling with some pretty huge ideas like life, death, unrealized potential, and whether or not poet's could detach themselves from their personal pain and just immerse themselves in their poetry. Big ideas!!! And amazingly, they did it... and they did it beautifully! They make me feel so hopeful when that happens. I must admit there are times in this technological era in which we find ourselves, that I worry about whether or not anyone will continue to contemplate Keats' words, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty-that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." But every once in awhile, my students give me cause to marvel... and for a moment, I know the words will live on.