The classroom is the only workplace I have experienced for the past 23 years - it has been my calling, my focus outside of my family; there has been little else.
My office desk, classroom and the school grounds are where I have been at home; they have been my comfortable place -my second home -the home I spend more time at than that place where I live with my family. How will I walk through life without them?
When I have had the chance to simply be in the classroom with my students, creatively working with them in order to make English exciting and stimulating, I have loved it. It has been infinitely rewarding to have helped struggling students feel they are not only able to cope with the demands of the subject but also to express themselves in ways that allow them to see that they have a story and are important. It has been so refreshing to see how encouragement builds hope within even the most struggling of students.
I have felt God's pleasure so many times.
When the Holy Spirit suddenly 'turns up' in a classroom in that way which sets your heart racing and alerts you to His desire to speak to students, it is electrifying!! These moments of REAL learning are the ultimate for a Christian teacher - those times when you, as the professional teacher allow yourself to challenge young people to think critically and biblically about the text or issue being dealt with - those times when the students' eyes light up with fascination and they truly engage in the whole lesson - those times when they ask REAL questions which matter in life and you feel Jesus standing alongside you guiding you because this is a path you have never trod before - because He cares about those lives in front of you and He wants them to know it. They have given my life meaning, energy and purpose.
However, this is not what had been happening in my classroom much of late. The lifeblood of my job had been sucked out and I was in need of a transfusion. This is what the six months off was about - having a blood transfusion in order to keep my teaching profession alive, or having an amputation and learning to live without that vital part of my life.
Sadly the system of NCEA , the admin, the constancy of assessment and marking, change- constant change, never-ending change and the fact that education is a political beast - one where the politicians have little regard for us and see us as a union which needs a mongrel of an MP to beat us into shape; the fact that there is so much time to be spent at a computer tossing data around rather than coaching and creating and relating have made teaching a very different world from the one where I flourished.
I have read a blog by Ali which says it all for me : http://mylifemylove.com/2015/04/02/why-ive-left-teaching/
I have loved the classroom with young people. I have loved being able to be a part of lives which are changing and growing. It has been such a privilege to help them learn and succeed. There have been so many moments where God has revealed himself to me through the words and attitudes of students and colleagues.
So...will this six months involve the transfusion needed to give me life back in the classroom or will an amputation take place and will I have to learn to walk a new path without the title of Mrs Price, English teacher?
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