Sage’s 10th Birthday!
Yesterday, I got my new teaching contract for next year and eagerly signed it. I started thinking about what has changed. Every year I struggle with signing that contract. I’ve spent the last two years actively looking for other work. Perhaps it’s fortunate that I haven’t found it, because I am getting an increasing sense that I am where I need to be.
I really hope that this feeling sticks.
I’ve found that when I’m at home writing (which pays less and less these days), I get lethargic and unmotivated. I need the job to keep me moving. The kids give me energy.
Lately, I’ve found new delight in finding ways to keep my classes interesting every single moment. I really try to keep them hopping. Remember that my “classes” consist, if I’m lucky, of a group of five or six freshmen, while I hop about madly keeping the kiddos in the other grades on task, since they don’t have much of a choice but to work independently. I have the most freshmen though, so I make a class out of them and actually try to teach.
I’ve wondered if it is the economy. If I now feel more thankful to have a job, any job. I don’t think that’s it, though, because I don’t think fear of unemployment would give me a more positive attitude. I could just be griping all the more about being “stuck”, you know?
Instead, my attitude has gotten much more positive lately. When I hear people bitching about work, it no longer makes sense to me. Remarks about how awful work is on Facebook from my work colleagues seem the same way.
I’m wondering, did it take me THREE years to adjust to this job? Now that I think about it, three years is the maximum amount of time I have spent teaching in any one place. I feel more settled now, in all aspects of my life. I wonder if it is prayer. I have taught my son to pray his thanks for things that would otherwise be taken for granted (as opposed to constant supplications) and in doing so, have prayed in that manner myself now for about two years. Last night, with my guys camping, I could not fall asleep without giving thanks, even though I usually only pray with Sage.
Maybe that’s what it is. I really don’t know. I’m just glad that I no longer feel the compulsion to check the classified ads every week.
