Accepting Our Place

Have you ever just wanted something so badly that it was all you could think about? It was all you could think about to the point of making you miserable that you weren't doing it yet? I have done just that very thing for around five years. For all that time and perhaps even more, I haven't liked my job. I'm a school teacher in elementary school and it just wasn't doing it for me anymore. The children were getting on my nerves. The school was asking more of me than I was willing to give. I didn't have time to put in on my lessons or the energy to try.

In 2003 the little school of about 265 students where I'd taught 2nd grade for around 15 years, moved to a larger school building. The old 70 year old school had served the neighborhood well. It was quaint and the teachers knew all of the kids in the building. The great thing about the old classroom was the size. It was huge compared to what we moved to and what I now teach in. The spacious classroom had windows across both sides of the room and had long chalkboards to fill up with all sorts of lessons. Behind two long bullentin boards at the back of the classroom were 30 little cubby holes stacked in sets of two with two coat hooks hanging down below. They was perfect for a classroom of 22 or more to have a place to stow their backpacks, lunch kits and coats. It was a fabulous room I'm telling you. I even had two big walk-in closets for storage. They don't make classrooms like that anymore in Goose Creek ISD.

Then we moved to the "new" building. It had been built to house special needs students and so the classroom sizes were much smaller than in the old school. Most of the classrooms were only meant to have around 12-18 children in them. Most didn't have windows except for a few that had a single narrow window that was difficult to see out of because of how deep into the outside wall the window was set in. I was in a classroom at the very end of a very long hallway. My trek down the hard concrete floors to and from the office area, library and cafeteria just about ruined my ankles. Besides that the rooms still smelled like a hospital, and I don't mean in a good way. The school district painted, laid new carpets and did their best to make it new. However, it wasn't new. The odd room configuration was awkward. There were no water fountains in the hallways or classrooms. The restrooms were in some classrooms but not all. The hallway restrooms were down that long hallway up by the cafeteria. I was one of the lucky ones and had a restroom right in my room.

Besides having a hard time getting used to this "new" building, (it as actually around 30 years old) my stuff had been plopped down in my space a day before our school year started with the teacher meetings. I was to have one workday that year to put up all the stuff that I'd brought from the old school building. I didn't have the time to completely unpack before the students were to start. So all that first year, I searched daily for books, papers, lesson plans and other things I needed to teach with among my boxes of junk. I couldn't seem to settle into the space. I was not a happy camper.

The next year I decided that the kids that had more difficulty changing classes and teachers should be self-contained and I would volunteer to teach them. It was a horrible year as I had one particular child that followed me around the room and moaned because he didn't want to do anything, he was escorted from my class almost every day kicking and screaming. Some days I would just go to the narrow window just outside my class in the hallway, look out and cry. I hated my job. I felt imprisioned. I wanted to quit.

The next year I had an opportunity to move to a new campus that was only 3 blocks from my house. Joy! Because 3rd grade takes the dreaded Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, I never wanted to teach that grade. No siree, I wanted no part of that kind of stress. But my friend assured me that if I came that I would just teach writing and it wasn't tested until 4th grade. Joy! Joy! I like to write and I like to teach writing. I got the job, but I never got to teach writing even for one day. The first week of our teacher meetings the reading teacher was transferred to another school to be a parent educator of all things. Since I was the only one on my team with all the reading teacher classes and background, my principal asked me to teach the 3rd grade reading and prepare the students for TAKS. I didn't want to do it and I was resentful because I had left another school where I wasn't happy and now I still wasn't going to be happy. I was wanting to retire so badly I could taste it.

Well I'm back at that school again this year and I'm still teaching 3rd grade reading. I started out this year in a better humor having done it one year and having a little better knowledge of what this school expected from its teachers. But I still wanted to retire. I still let the kids get on my nerves and I still longed to stay at home. I began going online to the teacher retirement system site. I talked to people that were getting ready to retire and others that had already retired. Most of them were friends that I had worked with. I am retirement age and I would have retired after this year if I hadn't taken out my retirement money some 15 years ago to live on. To the TRS the 27 years that I have taught in Texas public schools looks like only 17 to them. Disappointment and desperation was whelming up inside of me and making me feel even more trapped. How could I stand to do this for even one more year?

Then a week ago I went on a retreat with some of the teachers I work with. (See my last blog, "Capturing Kids' Hearts.) It was a training to teach us coping skills and relational skills in dealing with our students. The whole three days were incredible and I came back a changed person. My job seems important now and my mind has begun to wrap around the fact that I can teach another year or maybe even five.

There is a scripture in the Bible that speaks of being content in whatever state you are in. I thought while at the retreat that I had some new knowledge that I was eager to try with my students. Then I thought about retirement in about two years. That wasn't a lot of time to grow my skills. I finally admitted what I've known all along, that we really could not afford for me to retire. We owed too much money and our retirement wasn't going to be enough to live on yet. So I made up my mind to quit obsessing over something that had not happened yet. I have to live for now and forget being unhappy with my job. That has made all the difference in the world. I am more content with what I do. I try to plan better lessons and relate to my students better. I believe I am more patient with the kids too. Choosing to be content and accepting of my place has made me a happier person.

"Not that I complain of want; for I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content." Philippians 4:11