In all my time as a teacher, I never thought I would be so disrespected.
A student in my class had suddenly become upset for a reason he didn’t tell me, and decided that he would lead some sort of a rebellion with the class against me. He must have mumbled something in Spanish to the other kids but he told them to all ignore me for the rest of class otherwise he would start hurling insults and say mean words to them. The entire rest of the class, I knew something was wrong because of how cold and quiet it was but I could not figure out what was wrong. It wasn’t until the end of class that some girls came up to me to tell me how he and another boy had orchestrated the whole thing.
I couldn’t hold back my emotions and frustrations of how hard I’ve worked for this group. I spend hours in lesson prepping and every day I’m racking my brains and using my creativity to come up with interesting games and activities for them to play. So to hear them decide that they weren’t going to participate but also that they were going to stop others from learning as well? Absolutely unacceptable.
I had prepared a whole speech and wrote down what I was going to say to the students the next day and every time I remembered how they acted the previous day my emotions would well up again and again. I prayed and did my QTs gathering up my patience and love so that I could speak to them from my heart. I remembered that God has given me so many second chances where time and time again I’ve failed to come back to Him or turn to him for help yet He still welcomed me with open arms. I want to do the same for these kids and I couldn’t have done so without the strength from Jesus.
I want to say they saw my genuinity. That at the end of the day, I care about each of them and their progress at school and I hope that’s the message that stays with them. But after my talk, their attitude had a drastic change. Maybe it helped that we cleared out their folders of old assignments so there was this symbolic cleansing, but for the rest of the class, they were enthusiastic about the activity, and they even clapped and eagerly listened for the daily announcements that I had thought they considered boring! They’re really an adorable bunch and I feel energized when I see them enjoying their learning and getting along well with each other.
Being a teacher is the most unthanked job there is. I might never get to see the impact that I’ve made on these kids’ lives but I continue hoping that I can bring a little bit of joy to their day every day.