Love never fails.
A classroom filled with decorations and creativeness found on Pinterest.
Students sitting nicely in their seats actively involved in my fun, action-packed lessons.
Smartboard lessons prepared in advance with games and activities my students will love.
Parent conversations that always include a “Thank you so much for making this such a great year for my child!”
Book-themed centers that reinforce our weekly skills and keep the students appropriately challenged.
Test scores that continually go up and students who are continually improving and learning.
A class that had fun together, worked well together, and was excited to come to school each day.
As I prepared to head back into the classroom this year, those were my dreams. I was so excited for all the year would hold and that I would be able to bring some of the things the Lord has taught me over the past year into the classroom. I was going to be a great teacher! We were going to have a great year and everything was going to be beautiful!
We’ve been in school a month now and I am FAILING!
Other than the few decorations my parents helped with at the beginning of the year, I have done nothing beyond pinning on Pinterest.
Lesson plans are glanced at the night before as I hope my students actually stay in their seats long enough to catch any of the lesson.
It’s been a little too long since I’ve had Smartboard training and the total number of lessons I have prepared in advance is 0.
Most of my conversations with parents have revolved around discussing their confusion over homework.
We have yet to have time in the day for centers and have actually cut them out so we can finish a math lesson on time for once!
Last week, half of my class failed a test.
I’ve gone home almost every day questioning “Why am I here? What am I doing? I feel like a failure, and if I feel like a failure at the end of the day, how must my students feel?!”
The past month has been long and hard. Hard because it’s been easy. Easy to slide back into routines, focusing on my to-do list, and trying to “look” like a good teacher who has it all under control. Easy to slide back into the role of being a planner, scheduler, and control freak. Easy to put the test scores and achievement above the children who are right in front of me.
All of that used to be okay. It used to be easy for me to go through each day with routines, schedules, controlling what happened in my classroom, and making it look like I was a “good” teacher.
But it’s not okay anymore. It’s not okay because I’m not the same person I was. I’m not the same teacher I was.
We landed at JFK on July 30. A week later, I was back in the classroom preparing for the school year. It’s been a month full of craziness, with a busy schedule, no time to rest, and definitely no time to process. It came to the point that I knew I needed a day to rest, a day with the Lord to walk through this past year and all He’s taught me, but I just didn’t have any days available. Taking a day off seemed like so much work and I wasn’t sure when I would have the chance.
And then on Tuesday night, I got the text. The text that included four of the most beautiful words a stressed-out, burnt out teacher could hear: “School is closed tomorrow.” Closed… on a random September day. Never have I been so thankful that our school does not have air conditioning! But the most beautiful part was that in that moment as I laid the schoolwork aside, I knew the Lord had given us that day for me. He knew I needed that day. He knew I was drowning. I was failing.
I spent most of Wednesday afternoon pouring through journals, praying and talking to the Lord. The more I thought of the past year, the more frustrated I got. I walk into a school every day where my students push and shove to line up first for recess when there are children vying for a spot in line in the Philippines for what may be their only meal of the day. I hear constant complaints about not having enough money when most of my students have more in their backpacks than the kids in the slums of El Salvador own. I teach so my students can pass a test when there is an 8-year-old girl attending a preschool in Swaziland because she can’t afford to go to a real school and just wants to learn anything she can. Why in the world does God have me here?
At our final debrief, we were encouraged to ask the Lord what He had for as at home (wherever “home” may be). As I prayed, He over and over again told me “Love- love the people around me, love the hurting, love exceedingly, simply love.” Simple enough, right?
That was the plan. I would go into the year and love my students with everything I had. But that’s not what happened. The to-do list and the desire to achieve took over. And they didn’t just take over my time loving my students. They took over my time with the Lord.
So on that Wednesday, as I was reminded that He has called me to love those around me, God took me to the love chapter in 1 Corinthians, and the phrase “Love never fails” caught my attention like never before. Here I was, feeling like I was failing in everything I was doing. Failing because I didn’t have creative lessons. Failing because my students weren’t interested in the class or my Smartboard lessons were non-existent. Failing because I didn’t have it all together.
But in reality, I have been failing because I have not been loving.
It is simple. Love comes first. It comes above the planning, preparing, teaching, and test scores.
Because all those things will fail.
I will fail continually.
I will fail unless I go to the Lord to be filled.
And then, filled by Him, He will pour His love out to my students through me.
And that will not fail.
Because love never fails.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.
~1 Corinthians 13:1-8
