By Daisy Maynard, Faith Community Academy
The end of the school year is a time for grieving for every teacher.
You’ve spent the entire year building relationships with your students and their families. In some ways we are comforted because we will see them again next year in the next class, but some teachers don’t know when they will see their students again because they are off to the next school and season of their life. You wonder if you will ever see them again.
For me the season of grief is eased because summer vacation has arrived. A season of rest for many, and for some it’s a time to catch up on all the things that have been neglected because of the chaos of the school season, sports, church, and family activities.
The grief again gets clouded again by the excitement of a new school year. The new school supplies, the class roster full of names of your future class, and for some a brand new classroom or school that is a blank canvas for you to set.
Then the first day of school and Meet Your Teacher happens. It’s exciting to see all the new faces, but the quiet shyness of the students reminds you there is so much work to do to get them comfortable in the classroom. If you’re lucky some of your former students will stop by to say hi, but many will look at you as if you didn’t just spend the previous nine months together and the twoish months of summer vacation have seemed to erase all those memories you previously created.
As you begin to wrap your mind around the next school year, remember that what you do day in and day out makes a difference.
It takes a village and you are a part of each child’s village. There are parents, administrators, other teachers, families, and most importantly Jesus Christ Himself praying for you. They are praying for the children in your room, and the Lord knows exactly what they and you need.
Jesus used the illustration of farming fields in Scripture, and the classroom and the seasons we go through as teachers is no different.
In some student’s lives we are simply sowing seeds that need time to grow.
In others we are tilling the ground and breaking up hard soil. We don’t know what we are doing in each student’s lives, our job is to keep looking to Jesus through the whole process. He knows and He will use us if we allow Him.
So dear fellow educators don’t be discouraged when that former student hardly talks to you or your former students don’t seem to remember you.
What you do will produce a harvest because of what the Lord said in Isaiah 55:8-13.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
Neither are your ways my ways,
As the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are my ways higher than your ways
And my thoughts than your thoughts.
As the rain and the snow
Come down from heaven,
And do not return to it
Without watering the earth
And making it bud and flourish,
So that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
So is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
But will accomplish what I desire
And achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy
And be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills
Will burst into song before you,
And all the trees of the field
Will clap their hands.
Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
And instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
For an everlasting sign,
That will endure forever.”
Fellow teacher, as you begin your new year keep your eyes on Heaven for the Lord will help you and keep you through it all!