Taking a ‘Break’—for summer only

As another school year is coming to an end, it occurred to me the other day how teaching is similar to marriage… I know this sounds weird, but really think about it.

The first nine weeks of the school year is a total honeymoon period. I am getting to know the kids, what they like, what they don’t like, which genres they enjoy reading, what they know, what they don’t know and so forth. I learn who their friends and family are, just like I learned who my husband’s friends and family were when he and I first got together. They are on their best behavior, just like my husband was on his best behavior in the beginning. I know if they have allergies, when they are sick, what annoys them, what makes them shut down and how to encourage them. During this time, I am falling deeply in love with them and they with me. And all is right with the world.

Then comes the winter months. The second and third nine weeks are the ‘oh my gosh we’re married’ period. The period when I realize there is a lot of hard work to do if we are going to build a solid foundation that is going to be able to withstand the storms of the AIR test in the spring. During this time, we are deep into the work of the relationship. I am also learning what motivates or as my third grade team member likes to say, “what innocently manipulates them”, into giving it their all. I find myself serving them hot buttered toast on cold mornings, bringing donuts on Friday, replenishing the candy basket or prize box and offering tons of verbal praise and confirmation to each one. These are the same things I do to get my husband to finish projects at home, take out the trash, hang up a picture or buy a new couch. I must say, being married has given me a lot of experience in ‘manipulation’.

About halfway into the final nine weeks, things feel a little different. I find myself sensing the impending ‘separation’; suddenly, I’m ‘flirting’ with second graders in the hallway, knowing they are almost MY students now. I am also losing my patience more quickly than ever before when someone tattles for the nineteenth time or “accidentally” puts big X marks all over someone else’s paper. I can no longer referee the kickball game with googly eyes or emoji hearts dancing above my head, instead I find myself sounding like a sixty-year-old baseball umpire shouting at nine-year-olds, “You’re out, take a seat”! It’s the same tone as when I occasionally snap to my husband of 30 years, “No I didn’t cook dinner and the trash needs out”!

Although I am happily married and have little basis for this final analogy, I liken the final days of the school year to still living with your ex- but knowing the paper work is almost filed and you’re going to be ‘single’ again in a few days.

And all the mixed emotions that must go with that scenario are present. I am just as excited for summer break as the kids, but I will truly have to adjust to ‘being single’ again, even though it’s only for 12 weeks, then I start a whole new relationship cycle. Every year I tell myself, “Oh my, this is definitely my favorite class”, and every year, I sincerely mean it. I love that I get to start over fresh every year and experience all the phases of getting to know, falling in love and sending to fourth grade, eight and nine year olds. They are by far the best age group to teach, to play with, to ‘innocently manipulate’, to feed, to take care of and to build a great friendship with that I honestly believe will last a lifetime.

Just like a lovable ex-husband, I know as they grow up, they will remain in my life whether through social media, occasional phone calls, or personal visits. When you spend a year building and investing in a genuine relationship, that relationship survives the honeymoon, the marriage, the hard work, the disagreements, the arguments, the good days, the tough days and even INSIDE RECESS! And if a relationship can survive INSIDE RECESS all winter long, trust me, it can survive ANYTHING!

This has truly been a great year, with an amazing class and I LOVE every single one of them. I have four final days for the 2017-2018 school year to spend with an EPIC team and 38 phenomenal kids, and even though this day lasted 18 hours, it’s still the best job I could ever have imagined!

The End...That Never Ends

Shelly Webb

I have always hated endings, even happy endings to me are sad. When something ends, it’s over and I don’t like “over”. I like things to go on and on and never run out. Whether I am reading a book, watching a movie, or on vacation, I feel sad when things are winding down. I even mentally prepare myself to bid characters in books good-bye as I near the final chapter. I have actually committed the unpardonable sin of reading the ending of a book first, just so I can prepare for what’s going to happen. You see, as bad as I hate endings, I am worse at having to know HOW it’s going to end.

I have been thinking about endings a lot lately and wondering if “happy” endings could ever really exist. I mean what could possibly be “happy” about the end of something? I think these thoughts are rooted in the frequency I’ve been to calling hours or funerals lately. The older I get, it seems the more endings I find myself facing. And knowing that we all have an “ending” on this earth makes me feel really sad.

Life is amazing and everyday holds such promise and potential, even when things are going bad, I want another chance, a clean slate, a fresh start. I just always want more. And if I can’t always have more, then I at least want to know the ending so I can start adjusting.

Having faith in Christ and reading His Word allows me an insight into the future regardless of how my ending on earth will come about. I have always loved the verses in I Thessalonians 4:13-18, Paul not only speaks about endings, but he gives us an early edition into the future.

“¹³ But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.¹⁴ For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. ¹⁵ For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.¹⁶ For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. ¹⁸ Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

I love that scripture refers to those Christians who have died as, “asleep”. Asleep is not an end. Asleep is a rest or a pause; people that have fallen asleep wake up. Sleep is not permanent. I remember after my mom’s funeral reading and re-reading these verses over and over, day after day, month after month.

Grief is one of the strongest emotions, if not THE strongest that an individual will ever feel. It is a bottomless pit of anguish and the feeling of hopelessness that engulfs a person grieving is personal and indescribable to anyone else. No two people grieve the same way, the same length of time, or can even understand another person’s grief despite how much grief they themselves have endured.

Endings bring me varying degrees of grief. The end of a good book, I feel a little down for a few minutes and then move on, the end of a good movie or TV series, I’m disappointed for a night or two and then whatever show it was I was watching leaves my mind. The end of an era (a graduation, a wedding, my kids growing up, getting older) can make me feel really sad for a few days at a time, every now and then. Believe it or not, even the last days of the school year, I find myself feeling that lost feeling, like it’s all ending and they’re moving on to another grade.

I hate change, I hate loss and I despise death, but I remind myself that God doesn’t want me to be “uninformed” about those who are “asleep”. I hope that one day when I “fall asleep”, someone will remind my own kids of these scripture verses and that even though they might feel like it’s the end, I want someone to help them work through their grief the best they can with God’s grace and comfort and focus on the reunion that will happen when I wake up, well rested and raring to go!