As school starts back for another year, I do as I have always done and reflect on just what it is I'm supposed to be doing here. What is the point of this calling? Will one word that comes out of my mouth make one iota of difference in this world? I don't know how other teachers feel about this time of year but I know it's a time of anxiety for me. This year I started my fifteenth year as a teacher. Although I'm technically not a full time classroom teacher anymore, I still anticipated the first day of school the same as I always have, with the exception of one thing- I didn't have any back to school dreams. No dreams of missing desks, waking up at lunchtime, or coming to school naked. None. Zip. Same thing last year when I began my first year as an Instructional Coach. It occurred to me that maybe I'm not really a teacher anymore. I began to think about all that I HAVE been. Of all the hats I've worn, I learned the most as an agriculture teacher. I've never worked harder than I did then and I've never really known my students as well as I did those kids whose parents entrusted me to take them to FFA Camp and return them home safely with a trophy proclaiming us "Team of the Week".
My own family demands pushed me to the more heralded world of academia as a 6th grade science teacher and onto math and social studies too. At some point in time, I've taught all grades 6 through 12. I've taught everything from welding to woodworking to algebra. I'm one of those teachers who loves teaching more than they love their subject. If my principal wanted me to teach mandarin Chinese, I think I'd try it, albeit with a distinct southern accent. Almost everything I know about teaching, I learned while teaching Agriculture, a vocational class. Oh I know some of you hoity toits will raise your eyebrows and some of you vocational folks will look down your nose and proclaim "it's not vocational, it's career and technical education". Give me a break! We did a great disservice to education when we abandoned the word vocational.
We all know the words "job" and "career", but we seldom ponder the true meaning of the word vocation. Vocation comes from the Latin word "vocare", which means "voice", or to follow the voice of God- to follow our calling so to speak. Wow. Profound. I consider a vocation, far, far more rewarding and honorable than a job or a career. Becky Horst, dean of Goshen College, says " a vocation is a calling which merges our mission in life with God's mission on Earth." How dare we look down our noses at such a calling. You see why I still proudly proclaim myself a "vocational teacher"? Horst goes on to remind us, "The place God calls you is where your deep gladness and the world's hunger meet. That intersecting point is your calling, your vocation". How truly personal is that? Wow. What IS it I'm supposed to be doing this year? What a monumental calling this teaching thing is. I'm not sure I'm worthy or capable.
I recently read a blog linked by a cousin of mine. The blog was written by a former public school teacher who claims she was "brainwashed". I feel her pain, and I hope many school teachers who read this will recognize their own brainwashing. She recalls her early years as an English teacher. She laments the fact that she berated a 6 ft tall boy towering over her in tears, for not appreciating The Scarlet Letter. He was not "proficient" in reading. In our test crazy school system, he was a screwup, a failure, a loser. The teacher is deeply saddened that she failed to recognize his strengths. This "failure" she berated worked nights at his uncle's mechanics shop. He knew the names of every part of every motor ever mass produced and he could take them apart and put them together- all without the help of the Scarlet Letter. How terrible is it that instead of honing his strengths, she, just like we all have a tendency to do, focused on his failures? The blog author said she had tried so hard to find this kid and apologize. She'd heard he was quite a successful mechanic. Now I love the Scarlet Letter, but you know what? I love a guy who can fix my car too!
This school year, may we all aspire beyond a career and toward a vocation, the place where God calls us. The place where our happiness intersects with the world's needs.
So 'tis true! All I ever needed to know about teaching, I learned as an VOCATIONAL Agriculture teacher... (My top three)
1. Kids trust you when they know you care about them. If you're willing to back a trailer into the woods in the snow in order to get their pig to the State Livestock show, they know it and they don't forget it.
2. Sometimes kids need to learn their own lessons. For example, if you wear cuffed pants while you weld, you may catch your pants on fire. After the fire is out, people laugh at you.
3. Children need to know that education without service is useless. Give the janitor a bucket of squash from the school garden, and you can do no wrong the rest of the school year. You will also have an endless supply of paper towels that the rest of the school will envy.
Have a wonderful school year everyone. Whether you're off to private school, public school, homeschool, or teaching school!
Here are some pictures from this week. Addie insists that her future vocation will be "a goat doctor like her uncle Ernie". Ummm Ernie is not a goat doctor. He is a goat wrangler, dragger, show picker outter, etc. Addie says "well that's about the same thing don't you think?".
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