here are some photos of Kaitlyn from last summer and fall (2008). she’s turning two next month. i’m still amazed at how quickly she’s grown and changed. My beautiful Kaitlyn Rose.
Archive for February, 2009
In class
A new blog look. I’ll probably be changing it every time I blog, simply because I take too long to update and then I get bored with the thing.
But on to more interesting topics…
I am back in the classroom. And loving it. I am a long term substitute for one of the English teachers at Harlingen High School, the place where I taught for eight years. Everyone has welcomed me back with open arms and is hoping that I re-join the team next school year. I just might do that.
The classroom is a different place for me now. After a year and a half in Mexico and a total of three children of my own, it is safe to say that my perspective is very different. I now see teenagers with broken homes; broken hearts; dragging in to class unable to stay awake because of God-knows-what keeping them up the night before; smart brains but poor choices; trying, trying to find out who they are… Of course some of them are pretty together, but I see them differently, too. They need just as much attention as the broken. They need to know that they matter; that they’re not invisible because of their “good” behavior in this sea of drugs and drama. I’m smiling as they walk into the classroom because I WANT to smile, not because a teacher textbook tells me I must. I take some time to talk to them and give the grammar a rest because I really want to know what’s going on with them. Compassion motivates me. They are responding. It’s kind of like breathing.
It’s hard to get used to the 8-hour-a-day work schedule, and I realize that I have much less time with my own children. It makes the time with them even more precious. I find myself being jealous of Melodee playing at her friend’s house. WE need to spend the evening together. But I can’t keep her for myself alone. Finding ways to be meaningful to her in even the smallest conversations and gestures. My babies. Yet I find value in touching the lives of these teenagers, too. Not to be their mamma, but to be a voice or a smile that lets them know there is someone in their lives who is rooting for them. God help my testimony to bear fruit.
